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Wood, Hay and Stubble. 



KATE W. HAMILTON, 

u ' 

Author of “We Three,” “ Old Portmanteau,” etc. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. li«4 CHE.STNUT STREET. 



COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OP THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 

IT 

All Rights Reset'ved. 





Westcott a Thomson, 
Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 1. 

PAGE 

"Deliciously Unexpected’^ 5 

CHAPTER II. 

What to do about It 23 

CHAPTER HI. 

"Thy People shall be my People” 40 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Neutral Background 57 

♦ 

CHAPTER V. 

Several Things . 76 

CHAPTER VI. 

Hephzibah 100 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Sign across the Street 117 

CHAPTER VIII. 

If? 135 

CHAPTER IX. 

Dane’s Fortune 149 

3 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTEK X. 

PAGK 

What Others Knew 166 

CHAPTEK XI. 

What the Fire Revealed 182 

CHAPTEK XII. 

“Called” 198 

CHAPTER XIH. 

Tarrying by the Stuff 217 

CHAPTER XIV. 

“Day unto Day Uttereth Speech” 233 

CHAPTim XV. 

What Line? 249 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Jericho-Wall 267 

CHAPTER XVH. 

Our Missionaries 284 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

One Afternoon 298 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Prophet’s Chamber 311 

CHAPTER XX. 

“ Gold, Silver AND Precious Stones ” 325 


Wood, Hay and Stubble. 


CHAPTER 1. 

‘^DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED.” 

“ T ONSBURGH !” shouted the conductor, 

-Li opening the car door wide enough to ad- 
mit his head and an uncomfortable gust of smoke 
and cold air. 

The old woman whose poke-honnet, queer 
cloak and persistent endeavors to learn from 
conductor, train-boys and passengers exactly 
where she was at every mile of the route had 
furnished amusement for her fellow-travelers 
now arose with a long sigh of relief. 

“ Lizzy Ann, we’re here,” she announced ; 
and, clutching a carpet-bag with one hand and 
the sleepy child with the other, she hurried 
out. 

Once on the long platform, however, her satis- 
faction was dimmed by another cloud of anxiety. 

“ It’s a big place,” she remarked, uneasily look- 
ing about her — “ a pretty big place.” Then she 
began a fresh series of inquiries, accosting nearly 


6 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

every passer-by : “ Can you tell me where Mr. 
Wilber lives — Mr. Thomas Wilber ?” 

Fortunately, some one did know, and fur- 
nished the desired information at last ; but, not- 
Avithstanding the assurance that it was a long 
way up town, she peremptorily declined all 
offers of hackmen and trudged bravely away 
through the chilly dusk. 

In a plain, comfortable house in no wise con- 
spicuous among the other plain, comfortable 
houses around it a group of young people were 
gathered in a pretty parlor that autumn after- 
noon. The keen air had called for a fire in the 
open grate, and its dancing light fell cheerily on 
the soft carpet, cozy chairs, bright pictures and 
tasteful tables and brackets with their treasures 
of books, vases and bric-a-brac. It was a very 
pretty room, Hetty mentally decided as she sur- 
veyed it with her book dropped idly in her lap. 
“ Pleasant enough for any one, if only — ” She 
scarcely knew why her thought ended in that 
doubtful word. This day had been one of her 
“ blue days,” as her sister Louise called them. 

Louise herself was industriously crocheting 
one of those pretty trifles with which the house 
already seemed filled. Her white fingers flew 
in and out among the bright wools, and Hetty 
wondered — it was an old wonder — how Louise 
could be so interested in each article, and so 


‘DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED.’ 


7 


eager to complete it, when they already had so 
many. 

Dane, stretched on the sofa, was enjoying the 
last half day of one of his rather numerous va- 
cations. Rose had once remarked satirically that 
Dane’s business was like her last new piece of 
music — a great many rests in it. But they were 
all too proud of Dane to find much fault with 
his doing or lack of doing, and he certainly was 
a very handsome-looking young fellow as he lay 
there in luxurious idleness smiling upon the trio 
of sisters. Louise reflected complacently that 
the rich dressing-gown she had made for his 
last birthday-gift was unquestionably becom- 
ing to him. 

Dane also had dropped his book as the day- 
light faded and the firelight flickered too capri- 
ciously for reading. 

“ I must pause and reflect perforce,” he 
laughed. “ ‘ From the ends of the earth, from 
the future years, they are on their certain way 
to us — the lives that shall touch our own, the 
friends who shall do for us their appointed work, 
as we shall do ours for them.’ That was the last 
sentence, as nearly as I can quote it.” 

“ Humph ! I don’t see but the statement is 
just as true of anything else — of epidemics or 
cyclones — as of friends,” commented Rose from 
her post at the window. “ I don’t think our 
friends have been ‘ appointed ’ to do very much 


8 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

for US SO far, but a cyclone would break up tbe 
monotony of this very respectable street.” 

“ Rose !” ejaculated Louise, reprovingly, be- 
tween the stitches she was counting. 

“ Well, such a visitation has its alluring as- 
pects,” persisted Rose. “ Not that I am posi- 
tively longing for a cyclone, but we never do 
have anything deliciously new and unexpected. 
Everything was to be so carefully planned for 
and clipped of all extra foliage on the ground 
of economy that our very pleasures have grown 
like the street we live on — narrow, commonplace 
and rather dull.” 

“That is a necessary evil of limited means,” 
admitted Louise ; “ though,” she added, compla- 
cently, “ I think we contrive to make what we 
have go farther than many people would. As 
for the street, I doubt whether Tom would be 
willing to leave it in any case.” 

Tom certainly did manifest an absurd liking 
for the old place — the house which his father had 
left heavily mortgaged, and which he had slowly 
freed from encumbrance and kept as a home for 
his sisters and himself. Beyond that he was not 
supposed to care much for anything except his 
work. He did not appreciate aristocratic sur- 
roundings and all the delicate shadings and 
gradings of social life, and he figured but poorly 
in the little parties his sisters sometimes gave. 
He never objected to them. He wanted “the 


“DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED.’ 


9 


girls to have a good time,” he said, and in the 
humility of his masculine ignorance concluded 
that “women-folks knew best how to manage 
and the proper way to do such things,” even 
when he found the company uncongenial, and 
that the refreshments had considerably increased 
the household expenses. 

The girls had grown so sure that Tom cared 
nothing about pleasuring that they seldom con- 
sulted him — except in regard to the bills. Dane, 
as he grew older and when he was at home, was 
their usual attendant at places of entertainment, 
and really he was an escort of whom to be proud, 
with his handsome face, elegant carriage and 
faultless toilet. Every one noticed Dane. Tom 
could not he made to see the necessity of buying 
such clothes as his brother wore — some way, Tom 
never did think much of getting anything for 
himself — but then Louise and Rose consoled 
each other with the reflection that all the clothes 
in the world would not make him look like Dane. 
“ Tom was good as gold,” they would all have 
averred, but he was such an unambitious, plod- 
ding fellow, with no thought for anything beyond 
that tiresome store and a quiet corner at home, 
going on his daily round as regularly and me- 
thodically as clock-work. In fact, his place in 
the estimation of the household was not unlike 
that of the family clock — something indispensa- 
ble to their comfort and convenience, steady, al- 


10 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

ways to be depended upon, filling so surely tlie 
accustomed place, and doing the expected work 
so quietly and regularly, as scarcely to attract 
special notice except in the somewhat rare event 
of its stopping. 

Rose shrugged her shoulders at the mention of 
his name : 

“ Oh, Tom, of course ! But his infatuation 
cannot blind every one else to the undesirable- 
ness of the street. It would not be quite so bad 
if it were all residences, even though they are 
not particularly handsome ones, but it has never 
really outgrown its old business associations. 
That one old sign, directly across the street, has 
stared in at our front windows until it has be- 
come an impertinence.” 

“ Suppose you call it an illuminated text, my 
dear ; perhaps it would be more endurable,” 
laughed Dane. “ The possibility of turning it 
to such account occurred to me for the first time 
this morning. ‘ Woodhaye, Stubble & Co., 
Builders isn’t there a certain passage in the 
Bible about building with that sort of material 
— hay, stubble and the like — and a suggestion 
of total loss by conflagration, with no insurance ? 
I’m not familiar enough with chapter and verse 
to repeat it verbatim, but I’m pretty sure it’s 
there and that that’s the substance of it.” 

Dane was one of those young men who con- 
sider it a mark of superiority to be not familiar 


‘DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED.’ 


11 


with the Bible and to quote it jestingly when at 
all. 

Rose laughed, Louise smiled, but Hetty, from 
her shadowy corner among the curtains, spoke 
suddenly and soberly : 

“ If that is what the sign means, it might 
very appropriately be transferred to this side 
of the street.” She knew that text so well ! 
Only yesterday she had read it, and surely it 
had made her uncomfortable enough without 
this unexpected and careless application of it. 

For a moment no one spoke ; then Louise 
said, 

“Is your tooth aching again this afternoon, 
Hetty ? Why don’t you put on your hat and 
go out for a little walk before tea ? It will make 
you feel better.” 

Of course nothing more than a toothache ailed 
Hetty when she made such odd remarks. The 
young girl accepted her sister’s suggestion with- 
out answering her question. 

“ Louise treats me exactly as if I were a baby 
— all restlessness and crossness to be ascribed to 
teething,” she whispered to herself, with some- 
thing between a laugh and a sigh, as she de- 
scended the steps. “Dear me ! Life itself 
might almost be called a toothache, it is so full 
of twinges and discomforts that we are for ever 
trying to soothe with poultices of one kind or 
another.” 


12 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Then Hetty’s glance fell on the sign across 
the street. She did not want to see it, and for 
that very reason it drew her gaze with a strange 
fascination. “ If any man build upon this 
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, 
hay, stubble, the fire shall try every man’s work, 
of what sort it is.” She repeated the words 
slowly ; almost they seemed to repeat them- 
selves. 

“We claim to be on the true foundation — 
Louise and I, at least — and yet none of us are 
building anything but rubbish. I am sure it is 
nothing better, and I cannot feel satisfied as the 
others do. I wish — ” 

But the sentence dropped unfinished. Hetty 
dared not wish herself quite like them — like 
beautiful, brilliant, careless Bose or graceful, 
lofty, self-reliant Louise — though she had more 
than once been bitterly envious of them, poor 
plain little Hetty ! And her own mind was too 
full of troubled questionings and gloomy disquiet 
to allow her wishing that they shared her feel- 
ings. Once she had cautiously tried to win a 
little help from Dane, he always seemed so gayly 
self-satisfied; but in his mocking way he had 
met her with a solemn and unpalatable truth at 
her first faint approach to the subject : 

“ Child, what you need is a whole conscience 
or none at all. A half one, not strong enough 
to have its own way and with just life enough to 


‘DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED.’ 


13 


be always muttering because it can’t have it, is 
only a trouble. For my part, I don’t keep the 
article at all.” 

The church-services brought her little comfort, 
for she could not rid herself of the feeling that 
they taught and enjoined something more than a 
mere attendance upon them, a name on the 
church-rolls and a life not in open violation of 
church-laws. She had thought being a Chris- 
tian meant far more than that when she trem- 
blingly claimed the name and enrolled herself 
among those who bore it. But the old life had 
flowed on around her pretty nearly the same as 
before, and she had drifted with it. She some- 
times watched Louise’s serene face wonderingly, 
and questioned what the words could possibly 
mean to her when her clear voice joined the 
choir in their singing ; 

‘‘ Nearer, my God, to thee, 

Nearer to thee ! 

E’en though it be a cross 
That raiseth me. 

Still all my song shall be, 

Nearer, my God, to thee, 

Nearer to thee !” 

Certainly their life did not manifest such an as- 
piration. As for Hetty, she shuddered at the 
thought of any cross that might draw her nearer, 
and did not sing at all. 

It was not easy to talk of heart-worries and 
conscience-troubles to one who was sure to ascribe 


14 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

such difficulties to neuralgia or indigestion ; so 
she did not confide in Louise, but pursued her 
own fitful course, now trying to “ be good,” as 
she called it, and growing cross when her spas- 
modic efforts were misunderstood or laughed at ; 
then becoming too utterly discouraged to try at 
all or getting swept away from her resolutions 
by some pleasure which in its turn was gloomily 
repented of as soon as it was over. Hers was a 
struggling, unsatisfied spirit tormented by its 
own moods, and too often tormenting others also. 

It said something for Louise’s sisterly patience 
and charity that she was so ready with excuses 
of toothache and headache when she could not 
understand such moods in Hetty. For herself, 
she attended church regularly and the mission- 
ary society occasionally, made cakes for the so- 
ciables and tidies for the fairs, read a chapter in 
her Bible and said her prayers daily ; and what 
more could be required ? It demanded no little 
thought to live as other people in good society 
did, keep up the house respectably and dress 
stylishly on so limited an income as her family’s. 
The round of pleasures and entertainments re- 
quired, as Rose said, to be carefully planned for ; 
and Louise gave her energies to the task, and con- 
gratulated herself, as elder sister and mistress of 
the house, upon her management. Many of 
their acquaintances with more money did not 
make so good an appearance, and it apparently 


“DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED:’ 15 

did not occur to Louise that there was any cause 
for dissatisfaction with herself or her life. 

An odd fancy possessed Hetty that evening for 
applying the three words, and she could not ban- 
ish it from her mind. Louise was building the 
wood, she said — smooth, mechanical, soulless ; it 
was no spirit or life : it was just a wooden form. 
Rose — gay, airy, capricious Rose — was the soft, 
light, yielding hay, tossed hither and thither by 
every whim that seized her and fluttering in every 
breeze. 

“And if the stubble means bare of grain, un- 
sightly to the eye, rough and prickly to the feet 
and uncomfortable to every one traveling near it, 
that must be myself,” she concluded, sadly. “ I 
wish — ” 

But once more she paused, not sure that she 
really dared frame her wish. 

She had traversed the square with a slow step 
that was not worth much in the way of exercise, 
and so reached home again. Tom had come in, 
the gas was lighted, the dainty tea-table spread, 
and the scene looked bright and cheerful enough 
to gladden any one who had a right to call the 
spot “ home.” Hetty’s beauty-loving eyes bright- 
ened a little as they viewed it, but she had scarce- 
ly joined the group before the door-hell rang. 

Bridget, who answered the summons, was 
heard in earnest parley for a minute, and then 
she returned with a puzzled face, ushering in two 


16 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

strangers — the old woman and little girl from the 
station. 

“ It’s wantin’ to see llissis Wilber she is, and 
she’s just sure this is the place,” explained Brid- 
get. 

“ I am Miss Wilber,” said Louise, coming for- 
ward. 

The stranger’s glance swept by her and ranged 
the room expectantly, disappointedly. 

“ Yes, but it’s Mrs. Wilber I’ve come to see — 
Mrs. Thomas Wilber : the bride, you know.” 

Rose’s beautiful brown eyes opened wide and 
Dane darted a laughing glance at his brother, 
who did not look toward him, and for some rea- 
son did not seem to share in the general amuse- 
ment and amazement. 

“ She’s my niece, you see, Eunice Grey is,” 
explained the stranger, with a cloud of perplexi- 
ty overspreading her care-lined, kindly face as 
she scanned the uncomprehending countenances 
of the young ladies. “ She wrote me all about 
how she was to be married last month and come 
here to live — she always thought a sight of me, 
Eunice did — and I thought I’d stop over a train 
and see her, seeing I had to go right through 
this place to take Lizzy Ann home to her 
folks.” 

“ You have made some mistake,” began Lou- 
ise, compassionately ; but Tom interrupted her. 

“ No mistake except in the small matter of 


‘DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED: 


17 


time,” he said, coming forward with extended 
hands and speaking very distinctly. “ I under- 
stand it now. You are Miss Grey’s aunt Nancy, 
are you not ? I have heard her speak of you.” 

“ But where is she ?” interposed the bewildered 
old lady. 

“At home yet. You misunderstood the date, 
that is all. Eunice and I are to be married next 
month. These are my sisters and brother. Aunt 
Nancy.” He turned then for the first time and 
faced the astonished eyes of the household, his 
face unusually flushed, but determined also, as 
he presented them severally. “ I am sorry Eu- 
nice is not here to meet you,” he added, “ but 
you are welcome to my home — our home — -just 
the same.” 

The emphasis on that one personal pronoun 
had been very slight, and the sentence was cor- 
rected at once; yet it served the purpose of 
checking certain words that were springing to 
Louise’s lips. Undoubtedly the house was 
Tom’s, though she had never before been re- 
minded of the fact. Then she felt herself com- 
pelled to speak, and summoned sufficient self- 
command to end the embarrassing scene. 

“Wouldn’t you rather lay off your wraps 
without going up stairs ?” she asked, turning to 
iher guest with quiet politeness and with swift 
tact evading a tete-a-tete to which she felt un- 
lequal. “ Our tea is just ready, and you must feel 

j 2 

i 


18 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

the need of it if you have been traveling all day 
in the cold.” 

Tom bestowed a grateful look upon his sister 
as the old lady passed into an adjoining room. 

“ I haven’t intended to be unkind or abrupt 
about this, or anything of that sort,” he re- 
marked, in a low tone, as some explanation 
seemed imperative : “ I meant to tell you all 
about it a little later ; but no elaborate prepara- 
tion was necessary — neither of us cared for that 
— and I didn’t want any long fuss.” 

Whatever meaning that last word held it was 
left to the individual wisdom of the hearers to 
decide : there was no opportunity for question- 
ing. 

It was a somewhat constrained party that 
gathered about the table that evening ; the only 
wholly unembarrassed ones were the hungry 
child and the innocent old lady, who looked 
about well pleased. 

“ Well, I’m beat to think I made such a blun- 
der !” she said, setting down her tea-cup. “ But 
I don’t know when I’ll ever travel this far again 
— I can’t get away from the farm often — and I 
declare I am glad to see what kind of a home 
Eunice is going to have and how she’ll be fixed. 
It is nice, and she deserves it too, for she’s had a 
tough time some ways ; and she’s a good girl too, 
if there ever was one. She’s jest one of the salt 
of the earth, Eunice is.” 


‘DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED.’ 


19 


“ It is certain that we are all thrown into a 
pickle by her coming, if that is any proof,” 
commented Rose, in a low tone, to Dane — not 
so low, however, but that Tom heard it and 
darted upon her a glance the like of which 
pretty Rose had never received from him before. 

That evening was an ordeal to be dreaded, but, 
fortunately, callers came, and, ensconced in her 
quiet corner, the old lady could be left to Tom’s 
entertaining; and if, under cover of the gay 
conversation and music that filled the room, he 
fully gratified her curiosity concerning her niece’s 
future home, no one else was the wiser. 

It was late when the other guests departed, 
and no further effort in the way of hospitality 
was required than that of showing Aunt Nancy 
to her room; which ofiice Louise rendered in 
her usual courteous manner, but with an impen- 
etrable face. On her return she encountered 
Rose in the hall. 

“ Well ?” questioned the latter, arching her 
delicate eyebrows. 

“ You have your heart’s desire,” said Louise, 
sarcastically. “ You were wishing for something 
deliciously new and unexpected : I think you 
must feel gratified.” 

“ I didn’t request a bombshell,” replied Rose, 
more shortly than her wont. 

“But you did mention a cyclone,” laughed 
Dane. “ Hereafter, fair Rosamond, you will 


20 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

have as wide a fame in history as the celebrated 
old couple and their black pudding, with the 
same moral attached : ‘ Beware of foolish 

wishes.’ ” 

Tom has a perfect right to marry if he chose; 
Louise repeated that statement to herself several 
times while in her own room that night she slow- 
ly uncoiled her hair. But, though the assertion 
was uncontradicted, it did not still her whirling 
thoughts. Tom’s right was undisputed, but that 
Tom should have ever dreamed of exercising it 
was an overwhelming surprise. He was not too 
old nor too unlovable to win a wife ; he was not 
unable to support one ; there was no conclusive 
reason why he should not marry, when she came 
to consider the subject ; but the possibility of his 
doing so had never occurred to them. His elder- 
brotherly care had been so fatherly, he had 
seemed to be living so contentedly for them all 
the years with no plans for himself, that they 
had forgotten he could have any. The little 
property Dr. Wilber had left at his death Tom 
had so arranged as to take the weight of encum- 
brances chiefly upon himself and leave that 
which was readily available for the use of the 
younger children. The debts he had slowly 
paid off, and, as his devotion to the store was 
so unflagging, and his personal tastes were so 
simple and inexpensive, it had seemed natural 
enough that he should defray the household ex- 


‘DELICIOUSLY UNEXPECTED." 


21 


peiises, while the others commonly used their 
allowance for dress and the countless extras 
which were “ necessary to their standing in 
society,” as Louise phrased it. Tom had always 
taken care of the girls, and they had not thought 
that anybody else could ever have a claim upon 
him. Dane, since he had obtained a comfortable 
situation in a neighboring city, had talked large- 
ly of what he meant to do for them all ; but so 
far he had experienced some difficulty in pro- 
viding for his own wants, which were numerous. 
But Tom ! They had never thought of ques- 
tioning their right to depend upon Tom, any 
more than they had thought of questioning their 
right to depend upon the solid earth under their 
feet. What changes would come into their home 
with this stranger? Louise could not answer 
that question, and it was a pair of very grave 
eyes that met hers in the mirror ; and her medi- 
tation had reached no satisfactory conclusion 
when finally she laid her head upon its pillow. 

It was a relief to every one that the old lady’s 
charge of Lizzy Ann prevented her tarrying 
beyond the morning train. She expressed her- 
IBlf greatly pleased with her visit, and her satis- 
faction at seeing “ how nice everything would be 
for Eunice.” 

“ I shall take a sight of comfort in thinking 
about it all,” she said, earnestly, “ and I’ll un- 
derstand her letters a sight better now that I’ve 


22 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


seen how it all is. If ever I can come again, I 
will ; for it won’t be like coming among stran- 
gers, you know. Eunice has no mother and I’ve 
no daughter, and I’ve set a great store by her 
this many a year. I’m real glad I’ve met you ] 
all and know just what folks she’s coming i 
amongst.” 

The kindly old hand was extended to each ; 
one in turn, and her own warmth made her ob- ' 
livious, apparently, of any coolness in the re- 
sponse. Hetty, indeed, who came last, moved ! 
by some sudden impulse, returned the pressure ! 
cordially. At the door, even with Lizzy Ann i 
trying to hasten her steps by pulling at the old 
cloak. Aunt Nancy turned once more to reaffirm 
her statements by a parting word : 

“ Yes, she’s a real blessing that’s coming to 
your house. You’ll be like them folks of old 
that thought they was entertaining strangers and 
found they’d entertained angels unawares.” 

“ Of the ‘ unawares ’ part of it I haven’t the 
slightest doubt,” said Louise, emphatically, when 
the door had fairly closed. “ That is a state of 
things that will probably continue. Oh dear !” < 


CHAPTER II. 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 

D ane departed a little later, teasingly con- 
gratulating Rose upon having found “ some- 
thing to divert her mind from that obnoxious 
t sign across the street.” Dane prided himself 
upon being philosophical and superior to the 
j small ills of life — which, indeed, he was, so long 
as they were only other people’s ills. Tom, 
I therefore, met none but the girls at dinner, 

' and, though the meal was an unusually silent one, 
he lingered after it was over, folding his napkin 
with a deliberation that in itself betrayed some 
nervousness. Then, as the subject uppermost in 
all thoughts proved to be one of those that re- 
fused to be gracefully introduced, he seized upon 
; it forcibly and dragged it forward : 

' “ I am sorry your first knowledge of — of my 

plans should have come in such an unexpected 
i and abrupt manner last night, girls; I meant 
that it should reach you in a very different— in 
; a more considerate — way.” 

' “ It does not matter much, since it is a pill 

I 23 


24 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

that it would be impossible to render sugar- j 
coated in any case,” interposed Rose. i 

Tom did not seem to bear her. All the morn- 
ing be had been schooling himself in patience 
and forbearance for this interview, and blaming 
himself for the hesitation — cowardly, it looked 
now — which had allowed such intelligence to 
reach them in a way that would naturally 
awaken resentment and opposition, if not an- 
tipathy. He would not notice Rose’s remark, 
but looked past her to Louise and Hetty : 

“ I see now that I was wrong not to have told 
you at once, but our marriage — its taking place 
in the near future, I mean — has only lately been 
determined upon. Recent events have decided 
the time, and I meant to have told you soon.” 

“The event itself is so definitely determined 
that any criticism would be useless, I suppose ?” 
ventured Louise, half questioningly. 

“Worse than useless,” responded Tom, de- 
cidedly and with rising color in his brown 
cheek. Then, as a moment’s silence followed, 
his tone changed : “ Why should you wish to 
criticise, Louise? You do not know Eunice 
Grey.” 

“ Beyond a chance meeting or two, no.” 

The tone said more than the words, but Tom 
refused to interpret it. 

“ You do not know her,” he repeated. “ Un- 
til you do you have no right to criticise; and 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


25 


when you do know her, you will have no cause, 
no wish, to criticise, I am sure. You must not 
think I have been planning wholly for myself 
and totally regardless of your happiness ; I have 
never done that in my life.” 

A little tremor in his voice made Hetty raise 
her head and look at him earnestly. 

“ No, I do not believe you ever did,” she said, 
honestly. 

Tom’s gray eyes, very like her own, smiled down 
upon her, and he continued more cheerfully : 

“As I said, some changes have occurred lately. 
The boys — her two younger brothers, for whom 
she has kept house and really managed the farm 
since her father died, two years ago — are going 
away now : they have had an advantageous offer 
from an uncle in the West ; and the old place 
will be given up, which will free Eunice from a 
heavy burden of care and labor that she has 
bravely borne. She has no mother, no sister. 
Try to make it pleasant for her here, girls ; you 
can make it pleasant for any one when you 
choose.” In the long morning he had thought 
of many things he wished to say, of such irresist- 
ible arguments and explanations as should smooth 
out all tangles at once and change all opposi- 
tion into hearty sympathy, but they did not 
appear so potent now. In fact, he could scarcely 
remember what they were, and he paused with 
that one appeal. 


26 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

If silence was to be construed as consent, there 
was no lack of it ; and the interview ended. 

“ What do you know of Miss Grey ?” ques- 
tioned Hetty, curiously, as the sound of Tom’s 
retreating steps died away. 

“ Very little, for the simple reason that she is 
one of those persons whom one never thinks of 
taking the trouble to know at all,” replied Lou- 
ise. “ She was in that little wool-store where we 
used to go to match worsteds. Her father owned 
it, I believe, and was a cripple, or an invalid in 
some way, so that she seemed nearly always to 
be attending to the business. It was near Tom’s, 
and I suppose that is the way he became ac- 
quainted with her. It was a little place and not 
likely to be very profitable. At any rate, it was 
closed a year or two ago, and some one said they 
had removed to a farm in the country for the 
benefit of the father’s health. I have seen her 
in town once or twice since, in a farm-wagon, 
selling butter and eggs, probably. It was some 
time before I recollected her, or even knew of 
whom Tom’s new relative was speaking last 
night. I can’t tell what attraction Tom discov- 
ered, I’m sure, unless it was her general forlorn- 
ness. He seems to think that it is his mission to 
take care of forlorn people.” 

“ Or of people who would have been forlorn 
if he hadn’t taken care of them,” amended Het- 
ty, thoughtfully. 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


27 


“ Well, what do you intend to do about this ?” 
asked Rose. The question was put somewhat 
indifferently, as if the doing, whatever it might 
he, belonged solely to Louise. 

“ What I have to do about everything — make 
the best of it,” answered Louise, briefly. 

“ Then you won’t go away, or anything like 
that?” Hetty hesitated a little over the ques- 
tion, but the possibility of such a step had sug- 
gested itself to her the night before. 

“Nonsense! Of course not. This is our 
home, whoever comes or goes. Tom has never 
dreamed of anything else, and it would be absurd 
for us to do so.” 

“ Especially as we have no more desirable place 
to which to go,” supplemented Rose, “ and are not 
particularly fitted, like Miss Eunice, to make a 
shining success in trade or agriculture, or even 
as ordinary schoolma’ams. No, thank you ! I 
do not propose to play any such heroic role. 
After all, she may not trouble us very much ; 
if we do not like her, we can simply let her 
alone. Let Tom marry her if he chooses ; we 
are not obliged to do the same.” 

“That is nonsense also,” declared Louise 
again, more emphatically than before — “ far 
worse nonsense than the other. Don’t begin 
with any such ridiculous plan as that. Rose. 
Tom’s wife can be neither snubbed nor ignored 
in his own house ; he would not allow it even if 


28 


WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 


we had no more right feeling than to attempt it. 
Besides, we do not wish to give people any oc- 
casion to talk about the family. There will be 
plenty of unpleasant remarks in any case, I fear. 
She will be our sister-in-law, and we must just 
try to make the best of it, as I said, and of her ; 
which will be the hardest task, I fancy.” Louise 
sighed. 

“Dear me! how fierce you are!” laughed 
Rose. “ I didn’t propose to treat that sweet 
morsel, the family respectability, as if it were 
Red Riding-Hood and I a hungry wolf ; I 
meant only a perfectly amiable and ladylike 
letting alone, my dear. I do not feel called upon 
to go into raptures over people whom I do not 
like, or to overwhelm them with my company ; 
that is all. I presume Mrs. Tom will be no ex- 
ception to the rule. We need not worry our- 
selves. She is probably occupying this very 
minute in reaching similar conclusions concern- 
ing ourselves. I have no doubt she will disap- 
prove of me ; it’s my fate : 

“ ^ I never was a favorite, 

My mother never smiled — ^ ” 

Rose wailed out a snatch of the old ballad 
with a dolorousness that even the half-vexed 
Louise could not resist. She laughed, and Rose 
followed up the diversion at once : 

“That’s right; let us get back into the sun- 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


29 


shine. We really can neither help nor hinder 
this matter, and I am tired of moping over it. 
‘ Never cross a bridge till you come to it,’ Dane 
is always quoting ; and this particular bridge is 
at least a month ahead.” 

How beautiful Rose looked as she stood there ! 
Little fear of her failing to be a favorite wher- 
ever she chose to be one. Her fair face, her 
winning grace of manner and her infectious 
brightness were irresistible, Hetty thought, and 
she sighed as the old contrast between her sis- 
ter and herself once more rose before her vision. 
It might be really a question whether the new- 
comer would care for her — Hetty. She won- 
dered what she would be like. It was not easy 
to gain even the faintest idea from the wholly 
diverse, but equally indefinite and brief, state- 
ments of Aunt Nancy and Louise. 

“ Only I hope she is not one of those dread- 
fully stiff and solemn good people who will be 
always giving me tracts to read. I don’t know 
why I hate to read them so, but I do.” 

A remembered remark of the old lady had 
suddenly suggested the latter thought, and that 
in its turn reminded her of one of those same 
troublesome books lying unread in her bureau- 
drawer : 

“ Mrs. Barrows will be sure to ask me about it 
the next time I meet her, and I can’t tell her I 
haven’t read it. What would she think if she 


30 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


knew I hadn’t dared to look at it for fear it 
would make me more uncomfortable than I 
am ?” 

Her sisters had already left the room, and 
Hetty reluctantly abandoned her seat in the 
sunny window for the duties of the day. To 
begin with, it was her morning to sweep up 
stairs and put the rooms in order, and she did 
not particularly like the work — the sweeping- 
part of it, at least. But it must be done, and 
with a little sigh she donned her sweeping-cap. 
In her own room she paused for a long look in 
the mirror. It was a morbid fancy of hers to 
bestow frequent and critical examination upon 
the face she did not admire, and this morning, 
as usual, she magnified its plainness, which, after 
all, was only plainness, and not positive ugliness. 
Then, as she turned discontentedly away and 
opened a drawer to drop a ribbon into its place, 
her eyes fell upon that obnoxious tract lying 
title uppermost among laces and bright bows : 
For What Are You Living? 

“I don’t know. Not because I’m ornamental, 
certainly ; I’m sure I’m not pretty enough to be 
looked at. And, as for being useful — ” She 
dropped the half-mocking tone. “ Oh dear ! 
I wish I were good ! I’m not really living for 
anything; I am only drifting, and I don’t know 
how to help it. I almost wish, sometimes, that 
I could decide the matter once foi‘ all, as the 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


31 


Roman Catholics do, by going into a convent. 
That would end it ; I should have nothing more 
to do with the world. But this trying to live 
in it and out of it at the same time is a miser- 
able failure — at least, it is with me. If kind old 
Dr. Nelson had lived, I believe I colild have 
told him all about it, and he might have helped 
me. But I’d never dare mention such feelings 
to Dr. Lander; I’m always half afraid to meet 
him, and, as for going to his study especially for 
a talk — ” 

An expressive shrug of Hetty’s shoulders 
completed the sentence. She took up the 
pamphlet, looked at it a moment, and threw 
it from her : 

“I ought to read it, but I can’t, so there! 
Any way, I haven’t time for it now. If it 
wouldn’t be wicked, I’d burn it and tell Mrs. 
Barrows I thought it very good. I do think so 
— entirely too good for me. That is the trou- 
ble.” 

She began her sweeping vigorously, to banish 
further thought, and before the rooms were fully 
in order the door-bell rang and some one asked 
for her. 

“ What a time you were in coming, Hetty I” 
laughed Louise as she entered the parlor. 
“ Here’s Lizzie May waiting for you, brimful 
of projects and impatience.” 

Lizzie looked up from the low seat where she 


32 


WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 


was chattering and turning the leaves of a new 
magazine with equal rapidity : 

“ Yes, indeed ! And I have ever so many 
places to go to this morning. It’s about that lit- 
tle social at Music Hall : don’t you know ? The 
girls ha'v^e decided to have it to-night, because 
Professor Lake goes away early next week. It’s 
making such a crowd and hurry of it, but then 
it’s only a little affair. You will come, Hetty ? 
Of course you must! And can’t you go out 
with me this morning? That’s one thing I 
wanted particularly.” 

“ Oh, I cannot, Lizzie — not this morning. 
And I do not know about this evening. I do 
not believe — ” began Hetty, hesitatingly ; but 
her visitor made haste to cut short the doubtful 
sentence : 

“ Oh, there’s to be no believing or supposing 
about it: you must come. Why, Hetty, you 
nearly promised me when I spoke of it, a week 
ago, and you ought to consider that binding. — 
Oughtn’t she, Miss Louise?” 

Louise laughed in a gracious, elder-sisterly 
way — a way that made her as popular in Hetty’s 
younger circle as in her own : 

“ You’d better go this evening, Hetty, if you 
can. Why not? I do not see anything to pre- 
vent it.” 

“ There are some things I ought to do, and I 
am not really ready to go, either,” urged Hetty. 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


33 


“ I have no fresh gloves, for one thing.” It was 
a feeble objection, and she knew it. 

“ Oh, if that is all, I can easily get you a pair : 
I am going down town in a little while — if you 
do not wish to go for them yourself,” said Lou- 
ise, with a little good-natured contempt for so 
trivial an excuse in a matter that could be set- 
tled at once. 

It was settled. Hetty slowly unclasped her 
purse, drew out a bill and tossed it into her sis- 
ter’s lap, while Lizzie’s gay chatter of the flow- 
ers and music and arrangement of the hall flowed 
on. Hetty tried to listen and answer, though 
occupied with an undercurrent of entirely dif- 
ferent thought, and was glad when her caller 
departed. 

Then Louise bestowed a half-impatient re- 
buke: 

“Really, Hetty, I wouldn’t allow myself to 
fall into such an uncertain, vacillating habit of 
mind. You surely ought to know whether you 
want to do a thing or not without hesitating and 
demurring and waiting for somebody else to de- 
cide it. It is weak.” 

“ Pitiably weak,” echoed Hetty as she sought 
her own room once more and closed the door. 
“ I’m sure I feel it. It ought to be a whole con- 
science or none at all, as Dane says. I do want 
to go, only I more tlian half feel that I ought to 
refuse because it is Saturday evening and to-mor- 


34 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


row will be — But Louise knew that as well as 
I, and she didn’t see any reason why I should not 
go. Besides, I had half promised Lizzie be- 
fore.” 

The rooms were in order at last, and the little 
Bible she had resolved to read daily lay suggest- 
ively near her ; but reading and meditation were 
peculiar that day. First, there were a few verses 
which she mechanically scanned without their 
conveying any meaning to her abstracted 
thoughts. Then a single sentence caught her 
gaze and forced attention : “ As we have there- 
fore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, 
especially unto them who are of the household 
of faith.” 

“ That’s another part of it. I fully intended 
to save that last bill for the poor-fund to-mor- 
row — the poor of our own church, too ! — and I 
gave it to Louise to buy those gloves. My al- 
lowance always slips away in some such fashion, . 
and I hardly ever do any good with it. 1 must ■ 
have the gloves, however, if I am to go at all ; so 1 
it couldn’t be helped this time. I could have 
remained at home, though. But it is too late to , 
worry over that now, after it is all arranged. ■ 
Next time — ” j 

“ Be not deceived, God is not mocked.” Sud- ' 
denly those words flashed out upon her from the : 
page as if they had been written for her alone, j 
She dropped her head upon her hands : 1 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


35 


“ I know it — oh, I know it ! And ‘ whatso- 
ever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’ What 
kind of a reaping will it be ? Next week I will 
begin dilferently. But I have tried so many 
times !” 

It was an uncomfortable chapter for Hetty, 
and she gave it up at last, unable to read it con- 
nectedly and anxious to escape from those few 
tormenting sentences. She wondered, as she 
closed the book and pushed it aside, whether 
Louise’s chapters ever troubled her in that way. 
Then Bose’s voice called her from the hall: 
“Hetty, are you busy?” and she was heartily 
glad to answer the summons, though, with that 
strange infatuation by which we sO often attempt 
to deceive ourselves, she assured herself that it 
was an interruption. 

Bose wanted help in draping a skirt, and then, 
learning of Hetty’s engagement for the evening, 
she suggested some changing and remodeling of 
her proposed toilet — tasteful suggestions, as Bose’s 
always were, but necessitating a long afternoon 
which left little room for thought. Only when 
some of her companions called for her, in the 
evening, Hetty remembered to say, 

“ Now, girls, we mustn’t stay late to-night, 
you know.” 

“Why not? Oh, it’s Saturday night, isn’t 
it? I declare, I’d forgotten it,” answered Liz- 
zie. “Yes, of course we will come away early; 


36 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

we’re not heathen. I never can make it seem a 
bit like Sunday, though, until daylight.” 

“And you don’t succeed in making it very 
much like Sunday then, do you?” giggled a 
little bundle of frizzes and ribbons. “ I thought 
you didn’t two weeks ago, when Mrs. Barrows 
looked at you so for laughing in church. Her 
gold spectacles fairly blazed.” 

“ Well, I couldn’t help it,” declared Lizzie, 
her mirth returning at the mere mention of the 
occurrence. “ There was the funniest old man 
in the seat just in front of me, with the corners 
of his mouth drawn down — so ; and when he 
began to sing — You can’t imagine the effect.” 
She twisted her rosy lips into an indescribable 
droop and quavered out the lines of a hymn — 
a tender, prayerful, solemn hymn — in a style 
that threw the giddy girls into peals of laughter. 

Hetty laughed with the rest, but the next in- 
stant she was shocked and conscience-smitten. 

“ That’s too bad, Lizzie,” she said, reprovingly. 
“ It isn’t right to turn sacred subjects into ridi- 
cule.” 

“Was the old fellow a sacred subject?” ques- 
tioned Miss Lizzie, opening wide her eyes in pre- 
tended innocence. “ There was something odd 
about him, but I never thought of its being that. 
And I didn’t turn him into ridicule : he was per- 
fectly ridiculous, to begin with.” 

The girls laughed again, and Hetty, having 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


37 


appeased her self-reproach by that one protest, 
decided that it was useless talking to Lizzie ; she 
cared more to be thought witty than she did for 
anything else. 

The evening’s entertainment was what the gay 
girlish band who had planned it called a “per- 
fect success,” and the hours flew swiftly. Hetty, 
in a whirl of excitement and pleasure, took no 
note of time, and it was the careless Lizzie who 
at last startled her with the announcement : 

“ Hetty Wilber, it is actually striking twelve 
o’clock ! Had you any idea it was so late ? I 
thought you would be sure to watch the time.” 

There were a hurried leavetaking, donning of 
wraps and hastening away through the silent 
streets. Then, in her own chamber again, 
Hetty threw aside the dress and adornments 
that had cost so much thought a few hours 
before, and tried to “say her prayers” with 
meaningless and silly jests running through her 
mind and the familiar petitions seeming to set 
themselves to the music that was still ringing in 
her ears. Sleep would not come readily to the 
tingling nerves and excited brain ; and when at 
last she lapsed into troubled dreams, it was only 
to awake, heavy-eyed and weary, in the full blaze 
of the Sabbath sunlight. 

It was late, and the hurrying began afresh — a 
hurried breakfast and a hurried dressing with no 
space for thought ; an uncomfortably quick walk 


38 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


to the church, which was reached too late for the 
first prayer ; and then, slipping into her seat 
tired and breathless, she found herself at the 
holy communion service : 

“ This is my body, which is broken for you : j 
this do in remembrance of me. 

“ But let a man examine himself, and so let 
him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 

“ For he that eateth and drinketh unwor- * 
thily — ” ^ 

Poor Hetty ! It was no joyful feast to her, no 
glad home-coming of a child to the Father’s 
house. She had come with no long-cherished 
desire for strength and help, she had brought no 
treasured petition to be answered ; and the tears 
that fell as she bowed her head were not those of 
sweet remembrance, not even tender penitential 
tears, but those born of a bitter doubt whether 
she had any right to be there at all. 

“ rd sing the precious blood he spilt, 

My ransom from the dreadful guilt 
Of sin and wrath divine ; 

I’d sing his glorious righteousness, 

In which all-perfect heavenly dress 
My soul shall ever shine.” 

The rapturous song flooded the church, but 
Hetty’s lips were mute. 

On the way out she saw Mrs. Barrows looking 
earnestly toward her, and she averted her eyes 
and slackened her steps lest there should be 


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. 


39 


some question concerning that unread tract in 
her bureau-drawer. But by her lingering Liz- 
zie May overtook her, and whispered, briskly, 
as usual, 

“ You did get here, didn’t you ? Weren’t you 
dreadfully sleepy this morning ? I could hardly 
keep from yawning while Dr. Lander was 
preaching.” 

It was the old life pressing upon her again. 

“And I don’t see any way to help it,” she 
murmured, laying a wet cheek against the pillow 
as she threw herself upon her bed for a few min- 
utes — to “ rest ” her aching head “ and think,” she 
said. The two processes did not combine well, 
and in a sort of savage mood of doing penance 
she fished the tract from its nest of ribbon and 
lace and forced herself to read it through, gain- 
ing additional discomfort, if small benefit, from 
the perusal. Then she took up her hymn-book, 
but the only thing in the collection that quite 
suited her was this stanza: 

“ ’Tis a point I long to know — 

Oft it causes anxious thought : 

Do I love the Lord or no ? 

Am I his, or am I not V 

She found herself wishing, as she had often done 
in her childhood with regard to the problems in 
her arithmetic, that they had the answer written 
at the bottom. 


CHAPTER III. 


“THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.’* 

“ T WISH you much joy, my dear — I’m sure I 
i do!” 

It was the doctor’s wife who said it, breaking 
a moment’s awkward silence by repeating the 
congratulation which, in one form or another, 
had been uttered by all the little circle, while 
with her plump warm hand she patted the 
slender cold one she held. The words were 
eminently proper, and it might have been only 
Eunice Grey’s fancy that the tone suggested 
some latent doubt. 

The scene was not altogether an enlivening 
one. Outside, under a gray wintry sky, the 
snow lay white over the uneven ground of the 
little garden, on fence and gate-posts, and was 
shoveled away only in a narrow path from the 
walk to the house. On the low porch, around 
which leafless vines were creaking and rattling, 
trunks stood strapped and locked, ready for re- 
moval. 

Inside the plain little parlor, with its worn 
and faded carpet, stiff chairs and square old- 
fashioned sofa, a very small circle had gathered. 

40 


‘THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE." 41 


The boys ” were there, silent and ill at ease in 
the struggle between their determination to pre- 
serve their manliness at all hazards and a chok- 
ing sensation in the throat at the thought of 
parting from Eunice, even while they looked 
eagerly forward to the new life in the West. 
There were the gray-haired minister and his 
wife, the old doctor and his wife — whose visits 
to that house had so long been associated with 
illness and death — and faithful Hephzibah. But 
no ; Hephzibah had buried her face in her apron 
and vanished up stairs — covering her head and 
weeping as she went up, like the mourners of 
old — the moment the marriage service was ended. 
And there was Tom ; the grave face of the wife 
of ten minutes brightened perceptibly as she 
glanced at him. The deep fall of snow and 
the difficulty of procuring suitable conveyance 
in such an emergency at the little country sta- 
tion had at the last kept Tom’s sisters from 
the wedding ; and Eunice, who remembered the 
somewhat haughty patronage at the wool-store, 
tried bravely to mistake her sense of relief for a 
feeling of disappointment. There was one vow 
not written in the marriage service, and which 
no one had heard her lips repeat, which her 
heart had silently taken : “ Thy people shall 
be my people.” Very courteous were the mes- 
sages, very pretty the gifts, they had sent her ; 
yet even with the aid of these she could not 


42 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

quite convince herself that she regretted the 
absence which had left the circle gathered 
around her that day so drearily small. 

Altogether, the occasion was very different 
from anything her dreams had pictured in the 
girlhood that to the sober experience of her 
twenty-eight years already looked far away. 
There was neither father nor mother now to 
give the blessing she longed for. She glanced 
at the pictures above the mantel -piece — not gems 
of art in their execution, and representing only 
two plain country-people; but the girl’s eyes 
filled as she looked at them. 

“ Very cold, and you will need a heavy shawl 
besides your other wraps. Do you remember 
whether you had one left out when you were 
packing your trunks. Miss Eunice ? Mrs. Wil- 
ber, I mean.” 

The minister’s wife had been relating some in- 
cidents of her own winter journeyings by which 
she reached this practical conclusion, but the girl 
had been only dimly conscious of the fact until 
the direct question and the unfamiliar “ Mrs. 
Wilber ” aroused her. She flushed faintly at the 
new title and the laugh of the older ladies, and 
swiftly seized the opportunity afforded her to 
escape for a few minutes : 

“ Thank you, Mrs. Stone ; I do not remember, 
but Hephzibah will know. I will ask her at 
once.” 


“THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 43 

111 the square front chamber, seated on a trunk, 
was Hephzibah, with apron still making frequent 
darts toward her red eyes and nose. 

“ It’s peculiar,” she said, huskily, as the gray- 
robed figure entered, “ that I should take such an 
uncommon cold just at this particular time.” 
Then, as Eunice’s arms were thrown silently 
around her neck, she forgot all subterfuge and 
sobbed ; “ Good-bye, child, and God bless you ! 
To think you should be going out so, with only 
me to say it !” She was not one to yield long to 
any such demonstrations, however. The apron 
did service again, and she added, “ The prayer- 
books call marriage an ord’nance, and I always 
s’posed that meant something sacred, to say the 
least; but I see the newspapers call them big 
artillery-guns ordnance, too, and I declare I 
think they’re about equally risky and danger- 
ous. They’re both ’pointed, but the trouble is 
you can’t tell which way till somebody is killed, 
or nigh about.” 

It was an opinion favorable to Eunice’s self- 
possession, and she checked the swiftly-rising 
tears with a laugh : 

“ You dear old grumbler ! What shall I do 
without you?” 

“ If it’s only somebody to do the grumbling 
that you’re wanting, it’s more’n likely you’ll be 
supplied,” replied Hephzibah, grimly. Then, 
pursing up her lips as if to shut in some still 


44 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

more uncomfortable prophecy, she resumed her 
task of packing the last stray articles. 

Eunice silently watched her for a moment, 
the angular, awkward figure, the strongly- 
marked, homely, kindly face sharply outlined 
against the whitewashed wall. She had been 
servant — or was it friend ? — for so many years, 
and the tie broke here. It had seemed to Eu- 
nice, in the last weary year or more since her 
father went away, that the place had grown sad- 
ly lonely and held but little to bind her to it ; 
bnt, now that the last honr had come, she sud- 
denly realized how many heart- tendrils were yet 
clinging about it. She slipped across the hall 
to her own little room, now almost dismantled of 
all its belongings, and, closing the door, looked 
around her. What glad hours, what sad hours, 
had it seen ! How many prayers and tears and 
plans, wise and foolish, had it known ! She was 
glad the walls could never breathe the story to 
the stranger who would soon take possession. 

The opening and closing of doors below 
warned her that she must not linger. She said 
“Good-bye” to something, some one, and kneeled 
for a moment in the old familiar place — long 
enough to whisper, “If Thy presence go not 
with me, carry me not up hence.” 

Then her brother’s voice called her from the 
stairway : 

“ The sleighs are here, sister Eunice.” 


THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 45 


The boys were to go first. The wedding-din- 
ner had been a very simple one, hastily served, 
and it was followed by a hurried leavetaking, in 
which the impatienee of the driver and his stu- 
pidity in the matter of trunks left little space 
for tender words. Half an hour later Eunice 
was also seated in a sleigh with robes wrapped 
closely around her for the eold ride to the sta- 
tion, while the quartette of elderly friends waved 
good-byes from the poreh, and Hephzibah, back 
in the shadow of the hall, once more threw her 
apron over her face. 

Only the dreary waste of snow and the lonely 
country road, meeting afar the dull gray sky, 
stretched away before the travelers. The miss- 
ings, the memories, the partings of the day, had 
overtaxed heart and nerves and brought to Eu- 
nice an unwonted mood almost morbid in its sad- 
ness. Her gaze wandered over the wintry plain 
to the far-away dull horizon with a dreary ques- 
tioning whether her life-journey must be like 
this. 

Another pair of eyes were watching hers. 

“ Eunice, I learned the meaning of your name 
the other day,” said Tom, suddenly. “ I knew 
what it meant to me before, but I didn’t know 
that such an interpretation really belonged to it 
for all the world — ‘ happy victory.’ ” 

She looked up with a quick smile flashing 
through her tears. The words so answered her 


46 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

tlioiiglit that they seemed almost a prophecy, and 
she realized, with a thrill of glad thanksgivin , 
that it was far more than a prophecy of good 
that the one beside her should so surely interpret 
her mood and her need. 

Two weeks later the Wilber home was in its 
daintiest order, gas lighted and fires glowing, 
and the girls were waiting with more or less 
feverish expectancy the arrival of what Dane 
in his letters persisted in styling “ the epoch.” 
Louise, indeed, had a bit of crocheting in her 
hands, hut more from force of habit than because 
she was really working. Hetty made not even 
a pretence of employment, and Rose, drumming 
idly on the piano, dropped her slender thread of 
melody to listen to every sound of wheels in the 
street. Presently she turned from the instru- 
ment altogether and joined the others by the 
fire, laughing as the sound of a voice reached 
her from the dining-room. 

“ Bridget is in a state of mind at the prospect 
of the new regime, I fancy. Whenever the 
doors are closed, she mutters worse than Mac- 
beth’s witches.” 

Louise smiled. She congratulated herself 
upon succeeding very well with Bridget; what 
Mrs. Wilber might do was another matter. 

Rose laughed again when she said something 
of the sort : 


‘THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 47 


“ You managed by having your own way 
whenever you could, and when you couldn’t by 
letting Bridget have hers and pretending not to 
know it. Mrs. Tom’s commercial and agricul- 
tural education may have accustomed her to a 
different kind of management.” 

“ Isn’t it nearly time to drop that style of ref- 
erence to your sister-in-law ?” questioned Louise, 
a trifle loftily in her momentary vexation. There 
was a sting of truth in Rose’s criticism which 
made it unpalatable. 

Rose saw it, and her provoking good-natured 
laugh greeted the reproof: 

“ Don’t be indignant, my dear. You are at 
perfect liberty to quote Josh Billings’s remark 
that ‘ people who are always telling how things 
would have been done if they’d been there are 
the sort that never get there.’ I’ll admit that I 
never even attempted to manage the running of 
the domestic machinery. I’ve always washed 
my hands of the whole affair.” Those white, 
graceful hands had a fashion of only too easily 
washing themselves of all disagreeable tasks ; 
but Louise was mollifled as Rose added, “ I’m 
sure we shall all be thankful, Lou, if Mrs. Tom 
succeeds as well as you have done.” 

If Louise was secretly expectant and not iin- 
willing that the family in general, and Tom in 
particular, should soon discover that an egregious 
blunder had been committed, and learn the su- 


48 , WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

periority of her reign through the discomfort of 
missing it, she was not conscious of the feeling. 
She had explained the impending change in the 
household clearly but concisely to Bridget, and 
then wisely retreated, judging of the effect of 
her communication only by the unusual empha- 
sis with which the crockery and various kitchen- 
utensils were disposed of for two or three hours 
thereafter. She had also mentioned the matter 
pleasantly to numerous friends and acquaintances, 
not exactly saying it was a consummation long 
expected, but certainly not intimating that it was 
in any wise sudden or unlooked for in the fam- 
ily, nor conveying the slightest hint that it was 
what they would not most ardently have desired. 
And now the whole house was in its best order, 
even to the fresh flowers in the stranger’s room, 
and Louise was sure she had done all — more 
than all — that could reasonably be expected of 
her. Whatever might come afterward, she had 
a pleasant consciousness of having performed 
her duty — her whole duty, “ good measure ” — 
and in that comfortable conviction she smiled 
upon the very serious face with which Hetty was 
studying the fire. 

“ That’s a very doleful expression of welcome, 
Hetty,” said Rose, following her elder sister’s 
glance. “ You seem impressed by the solemnity 
of the occasion. It’s to be hoped you are not 
thinking of the bride?” 


'THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 49 


“I was thinking of her,” answered Hetty, 
soberly — “of what Dane read, or quoted, that 
i night before we knew about her. Do you re- 
member ? Something about those who are com- 
ing to take a part in our lives and do their ap- 
pointed work for us, as we shall do ours for them. 
I was wondering, that was all.” 

“It isn’t of any use to wonder about such 
things,” said Louise, quietly, shaking out a skein 
of bright wool. “ Talking about ‘ appointments ’ 
and ‘orderings’ always opens up that whole 
question of foreordination, that no one can un- 
! derstand. I am never troubled by such sub- 
I jects, because I will not think about them.” 

“ Louise disposes of all difficulties in her 
theology as the ostrich does of its pursuers — 
by hiding its head in the sand and ignoring what 
it cannot see,” explained Rose. 

The arrival of the long-delayed carriage pre- 
vented a reply. The three girls rose eagerly, 
then hesitated. 

“Fortunate snow-storm, that spared us the 
necessity of making a sortie,” whispered Rose, 
gleefully. “ Here our foot is on our ‘ native 
heath.’ ” 

“ It is on the new carpet that Tom paid for,” 

: answered Louise, pointedly. “ Do be reasonable 
if you can. Rose.” 

Then the door was thrown open, and from the 
- cold and darkness of the stormy evening the 


60 WOOD, HA Y AND '^TUBBLE. 

travelers were ushered into the bright, warm 
room. A fair vision of brightness and comfort 
it looked to Eunice in the first swift glance that 
was possible before the girls were presented and 
she was receiving their courteous — almost too 
faultlessly courteous — greeting. 

“And Dane?” said Tom, looking about him 
and missing a face. “ Where is Dane ?” 

“ He could not come,” Louise replied. “ He 
wrote yesterday explaining that it would be very 
inconvenient to come now.” 

“And Dane would scarcely attend his own 
wedding if he found it inconvenient,” supple- 
mented Rose, airily. She had pushed an easy- 
chair to the fire and was deftly assisting her sis- 
ter-in-law’s trembling, half-benumbed fingers in 
unfastening loops and removing wraps. 

“ He wrote how much he regretted it. There 
is a letter for you, Tom, and a package for Mrs. 
Wilber — sister Eunice,” proceeded Louise’s qui- 
et, evenly-modulated tones, exactly as if her 
sister had said the most natural thing in the 
world. 

Tom’s brow, which had clouded for a moment, 
cleared. He was too happy this night to be 
easily offended — ^indeed, he never was that — and 
Louise’s last words pleased him. He scarcely 
knew what he had expected, or had not dared to 
expect, from his sister, but the title she so readi- 
ly gave his wife thrilled him with satisfaction 


“THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 51 

not unmixed with surprise, and his slight dis- 
pleasure at Dane’s seeming neglect vanished like 
mist before the sun. 

“ I suppose he was unusually busy,” he said, 
kindly, in his brotherly fashion of making ex- 
cuses for Dane. “ Of course he would have 
found a way to come home — at least, for a day — 
but for that. Never mind, Eunice ; we shall see 
him soon, I dare say.” 

Eunice did not mind in the least ; she had a 
feeling that she should like to grow a little ac- 
customed to those already about her before she 
saw any more of the family. But then she was 
cold and tired, and, though she struggled brave- 
ly against it, a little homesick for the boys, Heph- 
zibah and the home that was nowhere in this 
world any more. She wondered vaguely at the 
sudden flash in Rose’s brown eyes and the pecu- 
liar twisting of her rosy lips at Tom’s remark, 
but it might have been only a refractory button 
that caused it. The wraps thrown aside, the sim- 
ple gray dress was revealed, and she was dimly 
conscious that three pairs of eyes bent upon her 
an instant’s swift, keen scrutiny. One who could 
have interpreted Louise’s face would have read 
relief. 

“ If she is not stylish^ or elegant, she is not 
noticeably — anything else,” was her mental com- 
ment. “One of those^ lieutral tints that will 
answer as a background for almost any design 


52 WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 

and she straightway began planning an appro- 
priate pattern. 

Tom had glanced hastily over his brother’s : 
note, and brought the package to Eunice : 

“ ‘ With all manner of kind wishes,’ Dane 
says.” 

“ Shall we take it to your room — if you are 
warm and ready to go ?” suggested Louise, with 
the thoughtful tact that had already won her 
reputation in her own little circle as a charm- 
ing hostess. “ You would rather examine it 
there when you are rested and at leisure, I 
know.” 

Eunice gratefully assented. The privilege of 
being alone for a little while in that pleasant up- 
per room — all dainty blue and white, with an 
open fire burning in it and a low rocker drawn 
temptingly beside the hearth — was indeed a lux- 
ury. Eunice sank into the inviting chair and 
listened dreamily to the sounds from below — the 
opening and closing of doors and Tom’s voice 
in the hall giving directions about the trunks — 
and tried satisfactorily to establish her own 
identity. Was this the room Aunt Nancy had 
occupied during her brief visit? She laughed 
with the tears in her eyes as she pictured the old. 
lady’s advent and her simple enjoyment of her 
surroundings in blissful ignorance of the con- 
sternation she must have created. She had 
viewed all these things with keen interest as the 


‘THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 53 


possessions to which Eunice was coming. Were 
they hers ? Eunice questioned. She was in her 
husband’s home, surely, but she could not feel it 
hers yet, nor realize that she was anything but a 
guest. Every one had been very kind, but — 
She did not finish the sentence, for was she not 
married to them also ? But she suddenly laid 
her cheek against a volume on the table and 
whispered, 

“ Oh, dear wise old Bible to assure us that the 
kindness of the Lord is ‘ loving-kindness ’ !” 

She opened the hook and glanced here and 
there at the sweet familiar words. The quiet 
half hour rested her. She opened Dane’s packet 
and admired the beautiful and expensive, though 
useless, gift it contained. Then she viewed the 
room afresh, noting the little details that showed 
thought and planning for her comfort, even 
down to the delicate vase of hothouse fiowers; 
and her heart warmed and grew hopeful, until 
she was ready to answer cheerfully when Tom 
came to summon her, and to enjoy the supper, a 
substantial one, served late with especial reference 
to the weary travelers. 

Yet, after all, it was a strange evening. Sit- 
ting in unaccustomed leisure, she watched in the 
pauses of the talk the bright worsteds flashing 
over her sister-in-law’s pretty hands, and re- 
membered that she had sold to the young lady 
many skeins of such wool. She wondered if 


54 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Louise remembered also, and what effect would 
be produced if she alluded to those days before 
these girls, who did not even hint that they had 
ever met her before. Visions of that small, 
dingy shop with its narrow counter and slender 
stock of goods mingled oddly with this tasteful 
room, and her eyes followed with a dreamy fas- 
cination the skeins shifting through those white 
fingers. How trivial such purchases usually 
seemed to those who made them, and how much 
they had meant to her ! So many pounds in a 
day had been considered a good sale. Once an 
unusually good run of business had suddenly 
completed the slowly-growing, carefully-counted 
fund for an invalid’s chair and allowed the pur- 
chase to be made at once. Her eyes filled with 
quick tears as memory flashed before her the 
pale sweet face that had smiled from among its 
cushions. How cheerily they had talked and 
planned that evening in the cozy little parlor 
back of the store ! — a room not like this. She 
dared not think of that now. She forced her- 
self back to the present, and remarked upon 
the first topic that presented itself to her, 
probably because of its marked contrast to her 
own past: 

“ How pleasant it has been for you all here 
together ! — three sisters.” 

“ Yes, we combine nicely, after the manner 
of a charlotte russe,” assented Rose, lightly. 


“Mrr PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.” 55 


“ Hetty is the cake at the bottom : it is gen- 
erally a little dry or heavy, you know, or it 
wouldn’t be used for that purpose ; Louise is the 
custard in the middle — good in itself and emi- 
nently respectable, no matter of what dish it 
forms a part ; while I am the delusive froth at 
the top.” 

Eunice laughed at the conceit, but the next 
moment realized that, despite its gayety, it was 
scarcely kind, and she glanced quickly at Hetty. 
But the young girl’s gray eyes were fixed on the 
fire, and she noticed the remark, if she noticed 
it at all, only by a slight peculiar smile. 

Fortunately, Tom came in then and proposed 
music, and numerous favorites, instrumental and 
vocal, were given, the various merry, difficult or 
sentimental fancies of the day. Nobody pro- 
posed a hymn to close with — Eunice because 
she was a stranger, and also because such a se- 
lection seemed so natural to her that she fully 
expected it without saying anything about it, 
until she found the piano closed ; and the others 
because they did not think of it at all. There 
was no Bible-reading, no word of prayer ; and 
so the evening ended. 

“ Or rather it was not ended at all : it only 
stopped,” mused Eunice, in her own room. 
“All the day’s doings and misdoings left with 
rough edges !” 

A prayerless house could not be a home to her. 


66 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


and slie began to ponder earnestly how changes 
could be wrought. 

Meanwhile, Louise was comfortably studying 
designs to be traced upon this “quiet neutral 
background.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE NEUTRAL BACKOROUND. 

» INVITATIONS!” exclaimed Eose, brightly, 
J- one morning, holding up the creamy, deli- 
cate envelopes which she had just received at 
the door. 

“ From whom ?” questioned Louise. 

“Oh, it’s no common afiair, I assure you,” 
laughed Eose, dropping one of the dainty mis- 
sives into her sister’s lap. “It’s nothing less 
than the grand Symington-Smith wedding.” 

Louise looked pleased — a gratification slightly 
tinged with surprise, fancied Eunice, who was 
leisurely examining the card addressed to “ Mr. 
and Mrs. Thomas Wilber.” She knew very little 
about these people herself, but she judged from 
that glance and something in Eose’s manner that 
the invitations were considered a special honor, 
and possibly one scarcely expected. 

“If Dane were here, he would suggest that 
the approaching election and General Smith’s 
desire to be a member of Congress were en- 
larging their circle of friends,” commented 
Eose, with a significant smile. “ However, I 

57 


58 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


am not particular about tlie motive ; I am 
chiefly interested in results.” 

“ Eeally, Rose ” — Louise looked up in digni- 
fied rebuke — “ if you consider your own friend- 
ship so worthless that no one would seek it except 
for some selfish or unworthy motive, you need 
not include the rest of us in your estimate. For 
myself, I feel that in accepting Mrs. Smith’s in- 
vitation we give quite as much as we receive.” 

“ I presume we shall be obliged to,” admitted 
Rose ; “ for there is the present.” 

Eunice laughed. Rose’s calm way of unveil- 
ing shams always amused her, but Louise turned 
toward her without seeming to notice the re- 
mark. 

“ Of course we have been acquainted with the 
family for some years,” explained Louise. “ You 
remember Mrs. Smith called directly after you 
came here?” 

“ Which means that she left her card one 
day when we were out, and we returned the call 
with our cards under similar convenient circum- 
stances,” supplemented Rose. 

“We have never been intimate, however, and 
so it would not have been remarkable if these 
had been omitted,” pursued Louise, tapping the 
envelope she held. “ But it is a pleasant atten- 
tion.” 

“ To somebody’s interest, theirs or ours,” added 
Rose. “And now the next thing will be to 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


59 


l)estow our own ‘ pleasant attention ’ upon our 
gowns. 


‘ Flora McFlimsey, of Madison Square, 

Keally and truly, what will you wear V ” 

But there was another point Louise wished to 
settle first : 

“ There is the present, as Lose says ; we must 
decide upon that. I suppose it would be better 
to make it en famille f with an inquiring look 
at Eunice. 

“ Certainly,” agreed Eunice, heartily. “And 
I shall be glad to leave the selection to you and 
to Rose; you know so much more about such 
matters than I do.” 

In truth, she was glad to dismiss the subject 
so easily. She had quietly accepted the round 
of calls and company that seemed unavoidable ; 
but even while Louise was congraultating her- 
self that her own tactful management and the 
accommodating “neutral tint” with which she 
had to deal were arranging matters very com- 
fortably, Eunice was earnestly longing to settle 
down again to what, in her simplicity, she called 
“ real life.” She keenly appreciated friendships, 
she was social in her tastes and feelings, but “ so- 
ciety,” in the sense in which her sisters-in-law 
knew it, was already proving a trifle burdensome. 
She could go to this grandly-important reception 
if the others considered it necessary or desirable. 


60 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

but she preferred to bestow as little time and 
thought upon it as possible; for just now her 
brain was full of planning, the result of a long 
talk with her husband the night before. He 
had been sitting at the table busy with numerous 
papers and a book of items and figures that 
seemed in some way refractory, to judge from 
his face. Eunice, in her low rocker opposite 
him, had her work-basket beside her, but her 
eyes constantly strayed from the sewing she held 
to his knitting brows. 

“ What is it, Tom ?” she asked as with a half- 
impatient sigh he turned a leaf. 

He looked up then, smiled as he met her eyes 
and pushed the book half aside : 

“ You find me dull company, don’t you ? It 
is too bad to bring such work home, but things 
get a little tangled sometimes, and take more 
time to straighten than I can find during the 
day.” 

“ Is there any trouble ?” 

“ Oh no. Expenses have been a little heavier 
than usual, that is all. I mean ordinary ex- 
penses,” he hastily explained, with a quick re- 
membrance of what his words might imply. 

“ The ordinary expenses have been extraordi- 
nary ?” she laughed. Then her face grew grave 
again : “ Can’t I help you ?” 

“ Oh, it’s nothing of much consequence — 
nothing for you to trouble over,” he assured her. 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


61 


“ The girls always declare that the very sight of 
these books is detestable.” 

“ But I am not the girls ; I have been a busi- 
ness-woman myself, you know, and that makes 
a difference. I’d like to help if I can. Really, 
Tom, I do wish you would tell me all about 
it.” 

He studied the earnestness of her tone and 
look for a minute. 

“All about everything, do you mean?” he 
asked, slowly. “ Would you really like to know 
all about the business and how it stands — debt, 
credit, expenses and everything?” 

“ Everything,” she repeated. “ Yes, I really 
do want to know. I am not good at walking 
blindfold. My life has not been like that of 
many other girls in such ways, you know ; and 
if I am to have any share in guiding this small 
craft, I want to see clearly what I am about — 
where we are bound for, what the cargo is — ” 

“And how much sail we can carry,” added 
Tom. “ That sounds to me like an exceedingly 
sensible proposition. Very well, then.” He 
drew another chair to his side of the table, 
opened the book once more, and both were soon 
deep in the pages of entries. 

It was a long session that followed, occupied 
now with careful computations, now with earnest 
explanations and suggestions. 

“ So, you see,” said Tom, at last, studying his 


62 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

wife’s face as he spoke, “ you haven’t been invit- 
ed to share a fortune, Eunice ; I told you that, 
Still, we have managed to get along pretty com- 
fortably for the most part. I suppose most of 
the pinching comes in the household expenses, 
though. I’d like to make the allowance larger, 
for your sake, but you see how it all is.” 

“ Yes, I see, and the sight is not at all terrify- 
ing, either.” She laughed cheerily up into his 
questioning eyes. In truth, to her, with her sim- 
ple tastes and life-long drill in the school of 
economy, the sum allotted seemed ample — more, 
indeed, than the good of his business fairly war- 
ranted ; and she could scarcely imagine what the 
pinching had been in that direction. She had 
almost said so, but a swift remembrance of what 
hands had managed the expenditure, and a con- 
sciousness of her own ignorance of the possible 
expenses and demands of this new life, cheeked 
the words unspoken. Countless devices for re- 
trenchment in outlay without any diminution of 
comfort began to throng her busy brain, how- 
ever, and of these she spoke, while Tom listened 
admiringly with a steadily-brightening face. It 
was, after all, a relief to share all these business 
details with some one. This ready comprehen- 
sion, clear thought and hopeful instead of dis- 
couraged view of the ground made to him an 
experience as inspiriting as it was novel. Novel 
also was this style of planning. He leaned back 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


63 


in his chair and looked at his wife with a long sigh 
of content, and his brief remark was a more com- 
prehensive history of the past than he knew : 

“ It is a wonderful comfort to have you here, 
Eunice.” 

He had never known over-much of sympathy 
or help; no one had thought of his needing 
either. Eunice suddenly realized it as she looked 
into the plain, sensible, good face where the 
care-lines had come too early. She could share 
the burdens : she could lighten them, too ; and in 
that happy consciousness she answered with 
assuring emphasis : 

“ I’m glad I am here — -just here, of all j)laces 
in the world.” 

So it was a brave and cheerful spirit that she 
had brought to the morning’s duties. She was 
eager to carry some of her new plans into exe- 
cution, and was well pleased to leave to her sis- 
ters-in-law the details of preparation for this 
formidable reception. It was an arrangement 
that exactly suited Louise also, and she acqui- 
esced very graciously. 

“ I am thankful that she was wise enough to 
trust entirely to our judgment,” she said to Rose 
as they set forth on their shopping-expedition. 
“Tom seemed never fully to comprehend the 
necessity in such cases, but, of course, whatever 
Eunice does will be right, whether he compre- 
hends it or not. I really feel that we ought to 


64 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


give something particularly handsome on this 
occasion ; it will be expected of us, and, with her 
contribution added to ours, we can afford it.” 

“ Or, rather, we can’t afford it, but intend to 
do it just the same,” corrected Rose. “ Louise, 
there are some exquisite vases at Holden’s ; shall 
we go there first ?” 

Meanwhile, Eunice, in pursuance of her pur- 
pose, had descended to the kitchen and was tak- 
ing counsel with Bridget — that is, she called it 
taking counsel. She felt that she was on deli- 
cate ground, and that it behooved her to tread 
carefully. That Bridget designated the inter- 
view by a different title might possibly have 
been inferred from a peculiar twist of her lips 
and a slight elevation of her nose. She pos- 
sessed, in common with her class, the inexplic- 
able power of filling any ordinary housekeeper 
with a humiliating consciousness that her pres- 
ence in her own kitchen is an unwarranted in- 
trusion, and any attempt to “ look well to the 
ways of her household” a bit of meddlesome 
impertinence. Nevertheless, on this occasion, 
Bridget contented herself with maintaining a 
dignified reticence on all subjects where she 
fancied enlightenment would be of interest, re- 
turned semi-respectful answers to direct ques- 
tions, and studied the lady as closely as the lady 
was studying the working of the domestic ma- 
chinery. 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


65 


The investigation was not wholly satisfactory 
on either side. Eunice had been in no haste to 
assume the reins of government, which Louise 
had somewhat ostentatiously thrust into her 
hands. She shrank from making sudden 
changes ; she wished to “ ring out the old, ring 
in the new,” very gradually, and only as the 
new was found to be unquestionably better. 
With the sensitiveness of a tender heart, she 
respected the strength of old ties, and appre- 
ciated the force of old customs and privileges 
even in the case of this maid, who had been for 
some time in the family. So she criticised very 
cautiously, commended wherever honest com- 
mendation was possible, and by kindly questions 
and suggestions tried chiefly to familiarize her- 
self with the existing state of affairs. 

“ I am trying to learn all about it, you see,” 
she said, pleasantly. “ If we are to live together 
and have our work go smoothly and comfortably, 
we shall need to understand each other’s ways.” 

“ Yes’m, to be sure. Some folks is that way, 
and more isn’t,” responded Bridget, non-com- 
mittally. “Miss Wilber she always give her 
orders like a lady and bothered no more about 
it, expectin’ me to know my business ; which I 
does, ma’am. But Miss Louise — she’s a real 
lady. Miss Louise is. Folks do be a good deal 
difterent.” 

The remark was of doubtful interpretation at 


66 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

best, and Eunice preferred to leave it in its origi- 
nal obscurity. She had gained sufficient mate- 
rial for reflection, and for wonder as well. There 
were some usages so wasteful and extravagant 
that it did not seem possible they could have 
received official sanction, and concerning these 
she ventured to interrogate Louise later in the 
day. 

Louise greeted the subject with a slight eleva- 
tion of her eyebrows : 

“ No, I did not know she did such things, of 
course; but then — Well, with our city help 
one has to decide not to know a good many 
things ; it isn’t safe to watch or inquire too 
closely. I presume Bridget is no worse than 
others in such respects, and she is far better 
than the majority of her class in many other 
ways. I have managed to get along with her 
very comfortably. Beally, the only way is to 
allow for a certain amount of waste and count it 
among the necessary expenses of keeping a ser- 
vant.” 

Something in the tone rather than in the 
words brought a faint flush to Eunice’s cheek 
and effectually ended the conversation. Yet it 
seemed to her that the “ certain amount ” was a 
very uncertain one, and that the expense must 
have been allowed without any question con- 
cerning its necessity. Sitting in her own room, 
she pondered the matter very soberly, and, it 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


67 


must be confessed, not so cheerfully as in the 
morning; but she was none the less resolute. 

“Straightening another’s crooked wall is al- 
ways a difficult, if not a perilous, undertaking,” 
she sighed. “ If I could have built straight 
from the foundation ! However, it was not mine 
to do that ; I must take things as I find them.” 

The sentence ended with a smile as she re- 
membered how much of her life had been taking 
things as she found them instead of being al- 
lowed to shape them for herself. 

She would have enjoyed another quiet evening 
like the last, but this evening the store claimed 
Tom, and, moreover, the girls were expecting 
company and her presence in the parlor. This 
last reflection aroused Eunice from the easy-chair 
where she had been alternately studying the fire 
and the slips of penciled memoranda she held 
and sent her to her toilet-table. A final smooth- 
ing of the wavy hair and the looping of some 
soft lace at her throat was all the change she had 
contemplated, but the result was not entirely sat- 
isfactory : 

“ It looks plain and neat, but rather stiff, I 
suspect. No ribbon or lace of mine ever will 
drop into the carelessly graceful folds that be- 
long to everything of the kind which Rose 
touches. Nothing that I could wear would ever 
assume that indescribable stylish air that always 
marks Louise’s dress. It is absurd to attempt it.” 


68 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Slie laughed softly, though with something very 
like tears shining in her eyes. 

There was a slight tap at the door, and in re- 
sponse to her invitation Hetty entered. 

“ I came to see if you were not coming down 
stairs. Are you alone ?” she asked, with a glance 
around the room. “ I thought I heard some one 
talking.” 

“It was only a bit of soliloquy, then,” con- 
fessed Eunice. “ I did not know I had spoken 
aloud, but I was wishing this tie would hang as 
it ought — as Rose’s ties always do.” 

Hetty laughed, gave the lace two or three 
amending touches and remarked hesitatingly, 

“ I supposed you were too — too good to care 
about such things.” 

“ Having no appreciation of grace or beauty 
isn’t an evidence of goodness, is it?” questioned 
Eunice. 

“Well, they are ‘fleeting vanities’ and all 
that, you know,” pursued Hetty, with an as- 
sumed lightness that did not veil the earnestness 
beneath it. “ So I supposed, when people meant 
to be really good, they couldn’t bestow much 
thought upon such trifles as dress ; only to wear 
what is sensible and economical — and neat, of 
course — and not care much how they looked.” 

“ I hope, for the sake of the family, that my 
goodness may not take that form,” laughed Eu- 
nice. “ God does not dress the world in that 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


69 


way, Hetty,” she added, more seriously. “If 
he does not despise grace and beauty, why should 
we? Indeed, we are so made that we cannot 
help admiring them — at least, I cannot. But 
they are not the most important qualities— that 
is true ; and if we do not possess them ourselves, 
it is a comfort to remember that God made us 
just as we are, fitting us for our own particular 
place in his world, and for our own work — our 
own, and not another’s.” 

But the tender brightness that crept into her 
face — a sacred reverence for her own individual- 
ity as something which God had chosen, and 
which friends in heaven and on earth had loved 
— Hetty could not understand. For a moment 
she gazed at the earnest face as wonderingly as 
if she had never read the words, “ The temple 
of God is holy ; which temple ye are.” Then, 
with the puzzled look still in her eyes, she si- 
lently led the way down stairs. 

“ Some way, that view of it seems more com- 
fortable than to be always thinking of one’s self 
as a ‘ worm of the dust ’ and talking about not 
caring for this ‘ poor perishing body,’ ” mused 
Hetty, doubtfully. “ But I don’t know — ” 
Then the door opened into the bright little par- 
lor, and once more she pushed aside her trouble- 
some questionings and resolved to have as good 
a time as possible. 

The circle was not a large one. Hetty’s own 


70 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

friend, the irrepressible Lizzie, had dropped in 
to spend the evening; another young lady, a 
friend of the older girls, and two or three gen- 
tlemen, completed the group. The conversation, 
the light, easy chat of familiar acquaintances, 
the flitting from one topic to another and calling 
forth frequent peals of merry laughter, were 
pleasant enough. Eunice, whose life had known 
too few such hours of relaxation, enjoyed and 
joined in it, quite unconscious that Hetty’s gray 
eyes were watching her to see whether indeed 
she did differ in any way from the others. That 
one expression of Aunt Nancy’s about the “ salt 
of the earth ” had lingered persistently in the 
young girl’s thought. Her first dread of an in- 
undation of tracts and admonitions had proved 
groundless, and now she scarcely knew what dif- 
ference it was that she expected or wanted — or 
did not want — to discover. But the corners of 
her lips curled a little as she watched and lis- 
tened. 

“ This particular lump of salt is of the kind 
that melts gracefully into its surroundings, I 
fancy, and seasons nothing,” she silently com- 
mented. 

“ Oh, Miss Louise, help me, do ! I’m all in a 
tangle with this netting,” exclaimed Lizzie, sud- 
denly dropping upon Louise’s lap the mesh of 
silk which had been busying her. “ Here is the 
pattern. It began all right, but I can’t get it 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


71 


straight, somehow. That’s always the way when 
I try to do anything useful.” 

“ You don’t call that bit of cobweb anything 
useful ?” queried one of the gentlemen. 

“ Indeed I do !” pouted Lizzie. “ Why, it’s 
for a fair — a sort of private bazar that Mrs. Jones 
is getting up for the benefit of a poor family. 
Eeally, they are dreadfully poor. We are to 
have the fair as soon as we can get articles 
enough for sale. I promised to make something 
real pretty, and this will be just lovely if I can 
ever get it done.” 

“It is to be hoped the family may not die 
of starvation in the mean while,” suggested 
Eose. 

Lizzie did not heed that observation. She was 
intent upon Louise’s low-voiced directions, and 
afterward she and Hetty bent their heads over 
the work, counting stitches and studying the de- 
sign until they had mastered its intricacies. 
When her attention was released, she discovered 
that a little table with cards had been rolled for- 
ward into the pleasant glow of the firelight, and 
the others were preparing for a game. 

“ Oh, you needn’t expect me to play,” cried 
the ever-forward Lizzie, forestalling all invita- 
tion ; “ I’m entirely too busy. And Hetty must 
stay here and help me.” 

“We did not propose to interfere with your 
work of charity,” laughed the gentleman by the 


72 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

table. — “ Take this chair, Miss Eose. — Mrs. Wil- 
ber—” 

“Thank you; I do not play,” Eunice inter- 
posed, quietly. 

“ Why, you haven’t any charity fair on your 
hands. Don’t you ever play, Mrs. Wilber?” 
questioned Lizzie. 

“ I do not know the game.” 

“ Oh, it is very easily learned, if that is all,” 
said Eose, while the gentleman beside her has- 
tened to place a chair. 

But Eunice declined once more. 

“ I did not mean to say that ignorance was my 
only reason,” she answered, with slightly-height- 
ened color. “ To be honest, I must confess that 
I have never cared to learn.” 

“ Perhaps Mrs. Wilber disapproves of card- 
playing?” suggested the young man who was 
dextrously shuffling the bits of pasteboard. 
“ Some people have conscientious scruples of 
that sort, I believe.” 

The courteous tone and smile did not wholly 
veil a half-condescending, half-contemptuous pity 
for such narrow-mindedness. The speaker was 
one who prided himself upon being exceedingly 
“ liberal in religion ” — in other people’s religion, 
however, since he did not possess the slightest 
claim to any of his own. 

“ I do not like it,” she answered, politely but 
briefly. 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


73 


“ Ob, but are you one of those dreadfully good 
people wbo tbink it is awfully wicked for any- 
body — cburcb-members, I mean — to play cards ?” 
demanded Lizzie, always abounding in adjectives 
and curiosity. 

Eunice smiled : 

“ I am not called upon to decide wbat is every- 
body’s duty, fortunately, but only wbat is my 
own. And I certainly know some card-playing 
people who are as far from being ‘awfully 
wicked ’ as I am from being ‘ dreadfully good.’ ” 

Rose laughed, and Louise hastened to say, 

“ Of course ! It is only a matter of opinion 
— one of those questions concerning which no 
sensible person tries to impose bis prejudices 
upon another.” 

“ But for yourself, Mrs. Wilber : you see 
wrong in these bits of pasteboard?” persisted 
the bolder of the cards, still with that same 
smile upon his lips. 

Louise frowned ; she was annoyed at the turn 
the conversation had taken. 

“ The bits of pasteboard are harmless enough 
in themselves,” replied Eunice, with no sign of 
perturbation at being called upon to define her 
position ; “ it is their associations and tendencies 
that are objectionable to me. I have young 
brothers; I did not wish them to learn what, 
though an innocent game played merely for 
amusement in the parlor at home, might have 


74 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

for them a fascination that would draw them into 
far different society and prove a source of tempta- 
tion and danger. But even if I saw in it for 
myself or my own no possible evil, there are 
otliers who do — others whom it injures or 
grieves ; and therefore — ” She hesitated. Odd- 
ly enough, she felt that her strongest reason 
would scarcely be appreciated in this circle, 
whose members, for the most part, were pro- 
fessedly Christians. Nevertheless, she gave it: 
“ I think this is one of the cases to which Paul’s 
declaration applies : ‘ If meat make my brother 
to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world 
standeth.’ ” 

“It is so easy to become ultra in such mat- 
ters!” murmured the young-lady visitor, dissent- 
ingly. 

And then, to the surprise of the others, the 
young gentleman beside Rose said half laugh- 
ingly, 

“Well, if I believed at all, I don’t think I 
should be able to believe just halfway and make 
my convictions accommodatingly stop at the 
most agreeable point. I always had a fancy 
that if I were a Christian at all I should be a 
terribly earnest one. Maybe that is the reason 
I never dared to begin.” Then he turned from 
the table : “ If the cards are distasteful to Mrs. 
Wilber, let us find some other occupation. — 
Won’t you give us some music. Miss Rose?” 


THE NEUTRAL BACKGROUND. 


75 


The one who had proposed the game yielded 
— trifle reluctantly, it seemed — and in a few 
moments the social stream was flowing smoothly 
again as if no ripple had disturbed it. 

Under cover of the music Lizzie confided her 
sentiments to her friend : 

“ Why, I wouldn’t be as solemn as all that for 
anything! Wasn’t it queer for Mr. Van Kort 
to say that? Of course one wants to be good 
enough to get to heaven, but then — Oh dear ! 
don’t you wish religion wasn’t so — uncomfort- 
able?” 

“ Why, Lizzie May !” 

Yet even as she uttered the reproving excla- 
mation Hetty knew that the words from which 
she shrank but echoed her own secret feeling. 
Mr. Van Kort’s remark had sounded like a keen 
rebuke to her, and she watched her sister-in-law 
wistfully and wonderingly. 

As for Louise, pleasant, composed, even-voiced 
as ever, there was still a certain something in her 
face that night which awakened Rose’s mirth 
whenever she glanced at her, but it was only 
when the evening had ended and they were 
alone that it found expression : 

“ Poor Lou ! After all her careful planning 
of designs, to think that quiet neutral back- 
ground should suddenly show such decided 
colors of its own and positively refuse to har- 
monize !” 


CHAPTER V. 



D ane was at home for the Symington-Smith 
reception, having run down for a day or two 
to see how they all were, he said — a fact over 
which the girls rejoiced, and Eunice also, since, 
as the others were provided with a suitable es- 
cort, she was allowed to wait quietly until a lit- 
tle later in the evening, when her husband was 
at leisure, and to go with him alone. 

From casual remarks in the family circle Eu- 
nice had been led to expect an unusual display 
of wealth and elegance, but it happened that the 
particular bit of magnificence which really sur- 
prised her was when, among the wedding-gifts, 
displayed and ticketed, after the not- very-delicate 
fashion of the day, she discovered their own of- 
fering. Novice though she was in sucli matters, 
it needed no second glance to assure Eunice that 
the gift was a costly one. So far beyond what 
she had anticipated, so out of proportion to their 
means, it seemed, that she was at once troubled 
and — Louise or Rose would have found it diffi- 
cult to understand such a feeling — ashamed. 
How foolish of her to have pledged herself to 

76 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


77 


an outlay without stipulating or questioning! 
Not that the expense could not be borne — Lou- 
ise was not one to rush into reckless and ruinous 
expenditure — but this was one of the things that 
she called “ necessary extravagances,” a thing to 
be accomplished at whatever after-cost of re- 
trenchment and inconvenience. To Eunice, how- 
ever, it appeared in a different light, and she 
regretfully realized that it meant a curtailing of 
gifts in other directions, where they were far 
more needed, and a postponement for some 
weeks longer of certain plans which she had 
hoped to carry into effect. A little later in the 
evening, when, in the general buzz of conversa- 
tion, she found herself for a few minutes alone, 
she sought a second inspection, to assure herself 
that she had made no mistake. 

Her slightly-clouded face drew the attention 
of an elderly lady near her, and, attributing the 
expression to loneliness, she kindly sought to 
banish it. 

“ You are a new-comer to our city, are you 
not, Mrs. Wilber ?” she asked, making room for 
her on the sofa. 

“ I have lately returned to it ; it was my home 
some years ago.” 

“ Indeed ? Then perhaps we have met before ? 
Your face impressed me as familiar when I first 
saw you this evening, but I understood you were 
a stranger here.” 


78 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“A stranger to most of these my husband’s 
acquaintances,” smiled Eunice, remembering all 
the circumstances which had made her so. Then 
a sudden flash of recollection revealed the fact 
that she had seen this lady, and where, and an 
explanation appeared the only honest answer — 
one to which, personally, she felt no disinclina- 
tion, though for the sake of her sisters-in-law 
(who viewed many matters from a different 
standpoint) she had resolved to avoid unneces- 
sary mention of the days to which they never 
alluded. Fortunately, they were not in hearing 
now. “ We lived in a different part of the city. 
My father had a small wool -store in Nelson 
street. I think you traded there sometimes.” 

Whatever shock the lady experienced, she be- 
trayed none. 

“ Ah, yes ! I remember now. I tried to find 
you afterward, but the place was closed,” she 
said, pleasantly. “You left the city, then?” 

Eunice scarcely knew afterward how it hap- 
pened that her brief explanation of their remov- 
al to the country led to a chat on the relative 
advantages of city and country life, and thence 
to an earnest talk about the various avocations 
open to women, and the qualifications and train- 
ing required. She found herself drawn into 
giving some pages from her own experience, to 
which her new acquaintance listened eagerly, 
relating in return several experiments, both 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


79 


failures and successes, in the industrial school 
and education society with which she was con- 
nected, and securing from Eunice a ready prom- 
ise of co-operation. 

“ You can help us, I am sure,” she said as they 
separated. 

“ What subject did you find so interesting ?” 
questioned Louise, with a curiosity not unmixed 
with respect as she joined her sister-in-law a mo- 
ment later. “You seemed to be enjoying each 
other intensely.” 

“I enjoyed her, surely,” said Eunice, glancing 
after the retreating form. “ Such a nice, pleas- 
ant, motherly woman !” 

“ ‘ Nice ’ !” Louise repeated the adjective as 
if it were wholly inadequate. “ You don’t mean 
that you didn’t know her ? That is Mrs. Shel- 

It was a name high in social rank, and Eunice 
laughed as she recognized it. 

“ Well, she is pleasant and motherly,” she in- 
sisted — “just as much so as if she were not worth 
half so many thousands. And she knew my 
mother — long ago,” she added, softly. 

That little wool-store on the back street seemed 
fated that evening to emerge from the obscurity 
to which it had been relegated, for while that 
tender light was still in Eunice’s eyes the con- 
versation of two young ladies in an alcove sud- 
denly became disagreeably audible. 


80 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“All odd clioice? Yes, indeed ! Why, she is 
the girl whom we used to see behind the counter 
in that little shop where we went for worsteds 
sometimes. Don’t you remember? The very 
same, I assure you ; no mistake about it. And 
how the Wilbers can — ” 

“Ah, Miss Gale! good-evening,” interposed 
Louise, promptly and decisively. “ Were you 
speaking of my sister-in-law Mrs. Wilber? 
Allow me to present her.” 

Words and manner were courtesy itself, yet 
there was a certain warning note in the empha- 
sis laid by Louise on the words, and in the glance 
that accompanied it, which caused Miss Gale to 
acquiesce very hastily, with greatly-heightened 
color, and rendered her rather profuse in her 
expressions of delight at meeting Mrs. Tliomas 
Wilber. 

Eunice was not a little amused at the incident, 
but, though she was grateful to Louise, it was 
impossible that she should comprehend what an 
act of heroism had been performed in her behalf. 
As for Louise, her head took a haughtier poise 
for the rest of the evening as she realized that 
the miserable little shop, the farm-wagon with 
its butter and eggs, and nobody knew what epi- 
sodes besides, must be overborne by her own 
stateliness. She felt that she was struggling 
with a herculean task for the sake of Tom and 
the honor of the family, and it is little wonder 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


81 


that she was afterward aggrieved when she con- 
sidered that her efforts had not been duly appre- 
ciated. On the whole, however, she viewed the 
evening as a success, and congratulated herself 
and the others upon it at the breakfast-table. 

Dane had gone away on the night-train. 
Breakfast was later than usual, and Tom had 
summarily partaken of it and departed, but the 
others still lingered in the cozy roojn where the 
morning sunshine streamed in pleasantly. For 
Hetty’s benefit. Rose had been describing dresses, 
supper-room, guests and gifts. 

“There were a great many beautiful things 
and costly ones, of course. I am glad we se- 
lected just what we did,” said Louise, compla- 
cently. “ Those vases certainly compared favor- 
ably with the other gifts. It is such a mortifica- 
tion to have anything look cheap or shabby.” 

“ Prepare to be mortified for the remainder of 
this quarter, then,” advised Rose, with a shrug, 
“ for I do not see how I can ‘ compare favorably ’ 
with any one who is able to afford fresh gloves 
and ties.” 

, Louise smiled ; 

“ Generosity is a somewhat costly luxury to 
us — that is true ; but we must enjoy it once in a 
while, even if it does call for sacrifices.” She 
glanced at her sister-in-law, but Eunice’s eyes 
were absently tracing the pattern of the table- 
linen while she soberly pondered ways and means 
6 


82 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

of atoning for her own share in this vaunted 
generosity, the cost of which in dollars and 
cents she had just learned. : 

The door-bell rang, and Hetty, waiting vainly 
for a moment for the sound of Bridget’s steps, 
answered it. 

“It’s that sewing-girl, Jenny Neil. She 
Avants to see you, Louise,” she announced, re- 
appearing. “ She said you told her to call — 
that you thought you should have some sewing 
for her this week.” 

“ I did think so, but I have changed my 
mind,” answered Louise. “ Wait ; I will see 
her myself.” 

Louise came back presently, shivering as she 
held out her hands to the fire. 

“ That girl kept the hall door open until she 
chilled me. I had intended to give her some 
plain sewing, but I must do it myself now, by 
way of economizing for last night’s liberality,” 
she said, with a self-satisfied air. “ That is one 
of the sacrifices I shall make.” 

Eunice, who had caught sight of the pale, dis- 
appointed face that passed the window, half 
opened her lips to speak, then checked the 
words. 

Rose had caught the same vision, however, 
and was hindered by no scruples of delicacy. 

“Well, I fancy, from poor Jenny’s face, that 
she wouldn’t think you had the heaviest of the 



SEVERAL THINGS. 


83 


sacrifice by any means,” she exclaimed. “ I de- 
clare, Lou ! that sort of liberality seems very 
like ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul;’ and in this 
particular case it happens to be robbing a very 
poor Peter to bestow upon a Paul that wasn’t in 
the slightest need.” 

Louise flushed : 

“ One would think you had no share in the 
transaction. Pose. You helped to select the 
gift, and are as responsible for it as any one 
else.” 

“ Oh, I acknowledge all that,” said Pose, care- 
lessly ; “ only I don’t flatter myself by calling it 
‘ liberality.’ If I stopped to call it anything, it 
would be — Let me see : ‘a rather exorbitant 
tax paid by vanity or moral cowardice to sense- 
less custom ’ would be a tolerably correct defini- 
tion, wouldn’t it ?” 

“And your ideas of economy are very peculiar 
if you think one hasn’t a right to do one’s own 
work for the sake of avoiding the expense of 
hiring,” pursued Louise. “ If you think it so 
necessary that Jenny should be provided with 
work, why not give it to her yourself?” 

“I haven’t any,” laughed Pose. “And, be- 
sides, I’m only an exhorter, not an example: 
that is not my mission.” Five minutes later her 
voice was heard at the piano, ringing out gayly 
in trills and arias, and Louise’s ruffled brow 
slowly cleared as she reflected upon the folly of 


84 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

paying any heed to the words of one so volatile j 
and inconsequent as Rose. 

“ I do wonder what is the right and wrong of 

it all r 

It was Hetty who said it, turning away from 
the window to the fire once more as the door 
closed upon Louise also. 

“ ‘ The right and wrong ’ of what ?” asked Eu- 
nice, after a moment’s silent questioning of the 
wistful face. 

“ Of this whole question of giving — and a 
good many other things, for that matter. There 
was some truth in what Rose said — at least, it 
sounded like truth ; but how can we help our- 
selves ? Is it wrong to do as everybody else 
does ?” 

“ If everybody else is doing wrong, surely.” 

“ But are they ?” persisted Hetty. “ Is this 
whole custom of offering gifts to those who do 
not need them wrong?” 

“ I think not, within proper bounds. Offer- 
ing tokens of friendship is a pretty social custom 
in itself ; but when it becomes mere display on 
the one side and a heavy tax on the other, that . 
is a different matter. We have no right to yield ’ 
to it so far as to give what we cannot afford with- ; 
out injury to ourselves or wrong to others.” ; 

“ But that word ‘ afford ’ is a very troublesome ‘ 
one,” said Hetty, doubtfully. “ It isn’t pleasant \ 
to explain to everybody just how one is situated, j 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


85 


or to have every one know. One has to keep up 
certain appearances.” 

“I believe that phrase, ‘keeping up appear- 
ances,’ with the idea that lurks behind it, is 
doing a wonderful amount of mischief in the 
world,” answered Eunice, earnestly. “ Why 
should we try to appear anything but what we 
are ? Any added respect we may gain from those 
who value people only according to their wealth 
must be a poor compensation for the loss of self- 
respect in living a lie, in making our whole life 
a sham.” 

“And yet you contributed your share to this 
wedding-gift,” said Hetty, bluntly. 

The color swept over Eunice’s face. She had 
not thought of making her condemnation per- 
sonal, neither had she intended to express her 
opinion of this particular gift, since, having em- 
powered the others to act for her and unhesitat- 
ingly declared her willingness to abide by their 
choice, it seemed ungenerous, if not dishonor- 
able, to express disapproval afterward. She had 
decided to say nothing about it, but for the future 
to act with the wisdom bought by this experience. 
Now, however, Hetty’s abrupt question demand- 
ed some explanation if she would not appear 
wholly inconsistent: 

“ I was only speaking of gifts in general. In 
regard to the one last evening, I had given the 
girls full power to act for me, without stopping 


86 


WOOD, HAY AND STVBBLE. 


to consider that their views might differ from 
mine in such a matter — that is all. Having done 
so, I have no right to criticise.” 

Hetty nodded her understanding of the posi- 
tion : 

“ I see. But, after all, Eunice, we have to do 
a good many things simply because they are ex- 
pected of us and because others do them. One 
doesn’t like to be peculiar.” 

“ Expected of us by — whom ?” Eunice ques- 
tioned, slowly. “ There is only one voice which 
has a right to say, ‘ Follow thou me.’ It isn’t a 
question of liking, Hetty, but of duty ; and, as 
for being peculiar, why that is the very thing we 
are called to be, though the word is not used ex- 
actly in our sense. Don’t you remember ? ‘ A 

peculiar people.’ ” 

Eunice’s face brightened as she repeated the 
words, and her young sister-in-law, watching it, 
felt a respect for her sincerity and a faith in her 
ability to act upon her convictions which she 
would not have known but for her memory of 
the little scene that had been enacted in the par- 
lor a few nights before. Nevertheless, she shook 
her head doubtfully : 

“ Perhaps she can do it — I don’t know — but I 
cannot; and, oh dear ! it’s all a tangle to me, any 
way,” she murmured as she souglit her own 
room. “ I can’t see where it will end, if one 
once begins, unless it is in becoming a nun or a 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


87 


Quaker. I wish — No, I don’t, either ! And 
it isn’t any use to pray to be good, when my real 
feeling about it is only a dread of what must 
happen if the prayer were granted.” 

For Eunice also there were some “ tangles ” 
that day, though of a different kind. To begin 
with, it was Saturday. There were many things 
in this new home that she longed to change, that 
she felt must be changed before it could be what 
a Christian home ought to be, and yet she wanted 
to win her way so wisely and lovingly as neither 
to wound nor to offend. One thing that had 
troubled her from the first was the Sunday. 
When, on the first Sabbath, the family had 
filed decorously out of the church and wended 
their way homeward without a word about a 
second service, she fancied it must be a devia- 
tion from their usual custom, perhaps on account 
of her own recent arrival ; but, as succeeding 
weeks brought no change, she questioned : 

“ You have a Sunday-school ?” 

“ Certainly. A very large and flourishing one 
too, I understand,” answered Louise, promptly, 
and in much the same tone that she would have 
used in explaining that they had the handsomest 
windows and the finest organ in the city. She 
wished it distinctly understood that Dr. Lander’s 
church did not lack anything which a well-ap- 
pointed church should have. “ Though, of 
course,” she added, “ as we have no children in 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


88 


the family, we do not know so much about it 
personally as some others do.” ; 

To Eunice, as much accustomed to her place , 
in the Sunday-school as to her place in the j 
church, that cool “ of course ” had a very strange 
sound. She would scarcely have believed a mo- 
ment before that any one — any Christian — could 
so use it in this age of Sunday-school interest 
and activity. But Hetty spoke before she had 
time to frame a reply : 

“ Oh, for that matter, Louise, a great many go 
to the school besides children or those who have 
children to send. There are all the teachers and 
the Bible classes. I have sometimes thought 
I’d stay myself ; only it isn’t really convenient 
just after the morning service. It makes one 
rather late for dinner.” 

“But couldn’t the dinner be a little later?” 
suggested Eunice, eagerly. “ I have always been 
in the habit of attending Sunday-school ; to me 
that and the prayer-meeting seem the very heart 
of the church. I’m sure you would like it if 
you attended regularly.” Her glance included 
Louise as well as Hetty. 

The former answered contentedly : j 

“ Oh yes, I presume it is all well enough — I 
proper and interesting too, if one has aj)titude ’ 
and leisure for such work ; but I have not felt , 
that I had either. For one thing, I particularly | 
dislike the old Puritanical idea of Sabbath-keep- t 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


89 


ing — a day of stiffaess and discomfort in which 
the house must be left to take care of itself, and 
the only meals that can be served are cold, hur- 
ried ones wedged in between church-services. I 
always try to have a specially nice dinner on that 
day, and to have the rooms look even more than 
ordinarily cheerful and inviting. Of course it 
requires some sacrifice of time and labor.” 

Those elaborate Sunday dinners requiring half 
the forenoon for their preparation were another 
thing that troubled Eunice. She soberly studied 
the toe of her slipper for a moment as it rested 
on the fender before she answered slowly, 

“Yes, I think we should try to make Sunday 
the pleasantest day of the week, and I like the 
particularly nice dinner too; only it ought not 
to take too much time and labor, and so rob 
somebody else of her Sabbath to add a little 
extra pleasure to ours. But that can be avoided 
by selecting chiefly such things as can be pre- 
pared on Saturday. I always tried to do that at 
home.” 

“ Probably you had less company than we 
have here,” said Louise. “There are always 
people dropping in, and it really seems necessary 
to set a table to which we can invite our friends. 
Dining solemnly on other people’s religious prej- 
udices is rather poor fare. However,” she added, 
in that peculiarly lofty tone which always quick- 
ened Eunice’s pulse to a swift resentful throbbing, 


90 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


“ I am not presuming to dictate your course ; I 
was simply stating what my own had been.” 

“As if nothing could be an improvement 
upon that !” mused Eunice. She resisted a mo- 
mentary temptation to put some of her thoughts 
into very explicit words, and meditated instead, 
until presently the trifling vexation vanished in 
the deeper difficulties of the subject. 

That “ dropping in ” of visitors was still an- 
other of the points which perplexed her. She 
did not like Sunday visiting; it seemed to her 
that that day, at least, should be free from such 
interj-uptions. Still, the question was many- 
sided, and she did not know all the circumstances 
surrounding the different cases. Moreover, these 
girls were in their own home — theirs before it 
was hers — and she had no right to lay down 
rules for them, nor to expect her opinion to con- 
trol their conduct except in so far as it controlled 
their consciences as well as her own. She must 
arrange for her own Sabbath and its pursuits as 
best she could, without encroaching upon the 
rights or unnecessarily crossing the wishes of 
others. But the dinner was a different matter — 
one which came properly under her own control ; 
and when, as mistress of the house, all such 
arrangements dropped into her hands, she de- 
cided to make a cliange there. 

“ Surely hot roasts and freshly-baked pies and 
puddings are not so essential to any one’s com- 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


91 


fort and happiness that they cannot be dispensed 
with for one day in the week, especially as so 
many equally nice dishes can be prepared to 
take their place,” she reflected. “ At any rate, 
I am not willing to devote Sunday morning to 
such work myself, and I do not think it right to 
require Bridget to do it.” 

But when she said something of the kind to 
Louise, she was met with that smile of superior 
wisdom which, for some reason, always had an 
exasperating effect on Eunice: 

“I greatly doubt whether plodding through 
the cold to her own church to hear somebody 
mumble in Latin what she could scarcely under- 
stand even if it were spoken in English is a 
much more profitable exercise for Bridget than 
picking raisins at home in the kitchen. But you 
can try it, certainly, if you think it is. As for 
the effect upon the dinner — Well, I suppose 
one can do with almost anything for one day.” 

Louise so clearly expected it to be “almost 
nothing” that Eunice’s housewifely pride was 
piqued and an added zest given to her desire 
that the family should find in the change no de- 
terioration in the bill of fare. So, on this Sat- 
urday morning, she had some work on her hands 
and various carefully-laid plans which she wished 
to carry into execution. She explained her pur- 
pose to Bridget, who should have been one of the 
parties most interested, but that stout-armed and 


92 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


rather obtuse young woman either did not un- 
derstand, did not care or objected upon principle 
to all innovations, and classed the proposer of 
this project among them. Certainly, she vouch- 
safed the scheme no sympathy. 

That statement may seem of small consequence, 
but it means that the kitchen fire died down un- 
accountably that day whenever a hot oven was 
desired and flamed into extraordinary fierceness 
when it was not needed. Bridget, of course, was 
attending to her own work, and it seemed to call 
for a treatment and temperature so entirely dif- 
ferent from that required by Mrs. Wilber’s that 
the dampers were nearly always tnrned in the 
wrong direction. However, with much patience, 
the lady succeeded in accomplishing all that she 
thouglit called for her personal oversight, and 
then gladly departed. 

Now, according to all story-book rule and 
precedent, that dinner should have been a won- 
derful success — the most perfect one ever served 
in that house — and should immediately and 
sweetly have won the whole family to Eunice’s 
way of thinking. She was herself so expectant 
of such a consummation that she went very hap- 
pily to church the next morning, remained for 
the Sabbath-school and thoroughly enjoyed it, 
and was in no wise dismayed, on reaching home, 
to find that two acquaintances of Louise’s — people 
whom she particularly wished to honor, as was 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


93 


betokened by a certain empressement in her in- 
troduction — were to dine with them. 

What really happened was this : The table, in 
its snowy linen, bright silver, and all its dainty 
appointments, was perfect; the light biscuits, 
amber jellies, delicately -sliced cold meats and 
quickly-prepared vegetables were faultless in 
their ivay ; and so far all went smoothly. But 
the dessert ! 

When the kitchen door had closed upon Mrs. 
Wilber’s retreating figure the day before, Bridget 
Mulroony had confidentially remarked to her- 
self, “Them as begins can finish,” and added the 
information that she. Miss Mulroony, would not 
be responsible for anything she had not done 
with her “ own two hands, first and last.” 
Whether that conclusion had anything to do 
with her want of success or whether she had 
simply and entirely mistaken the carefully-given 
instructions is uncertain, but the dark, doughy, 
unpalatable result which appeared at the dinner- 
table was no more like the light, creamy, deli- 
cious combination Eunice had so carefully pre- 
pared and thought she had seen on its way to 
completion than was the heavy, sore heart within 
her like the light one she had known a few min- 
utes before. Tom struggled valiantly with the 
uninviting dish — the look on his wife’s face 
would have induced him to attempt almost 
anything — but it was too much even for his 


94 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

loyalty. The others only toyed with their 
spoons. 

Eunice made the briefest possible apology, 
since apology of some sort seemed unavoidable, 
and, calling Bridget to remove the dishes, offered 
such substitute as she could command. But 
Louise’s arched eyebrows and Rose’s mischiev- 
ously-dancing eyes did not add to her composure, 
and she was heartily glad when the uncomfort- 
able meal was ended and the guests could be left 
to Louise while she escaped to her own room. 

Rose, passing through the hall, could not let 
her slip away so readily. 

“Aren’t you ready to give it up?” she de- 
manded, teasingly. 

“ No, I am not,” Eunice answered, with an 
emphasis which was intensified by her flushed 
face and a sudden flash in her eyes. 

“ Oh ! It is only one-third principle, then, 
and two-thirds spunk ? I have great confidence 
in the perseverance of the latter — far more than 
in the former — and maybe you will succeed, after 
all,” laughed Rose, carelessly. 

That encounter was not soothing, and a sting 
of self-reproach was added to Eunice’s mortifica- 
tion and annoyance. 

“ Other people’s feelings are never anything 
but a jest to her. How provoking she is !” she 
murmured. “But I don’t know what pos- 
sessed me to answer her in that way. And, oh 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


95 


dear ! why need this whole miserable thing have 
happened to-day, of all days, when I was so 
anxious that everything should go right ? I did 
so want to bring about a better way of doing, 
and now Louise is triumphant, I suppose, or 
would be if she could forgive me for such a fail- 
ure before her grand friends. Rose thinks my 
effort was simply a determination to have my 
own way, and those strangers — I don’t much 
care what they think, only I never want to see 
them again.” 

Her temples throbbed with nervous pain, the 
hot tears stood in her eyes, and she viewed the 
whole situation, past and present, despairingly. 
She had come to a hard place. If only she and 
Tom could have a home of their own, really 
their own ! and a tempting vision rose before 
her of what a little earthly paradise she could 
make of such a place, where she could carry out 
her own plans without so many to criticise or to 
be conciliated. She would not have uttered such 
a wish to any one. In truth, her thought scarce- 
ly took the form of a wish. She knew and 
thoroughly approved all her husband’s reasons 
for maintaining this home as it was, and she 
surely did not repent any step she had taken, 
but she felt humiliated and disconsolate. It was 
not simply to-day’s occurrence. She was not 
one to yield weakly to moods of depression or 
to build mountains out of mole-hills, but all her 


96 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

annoyance and regret concerning that unfortunate 
gift and her worry and vexation with Bridget 
yesterday had worn upon nerve and courage, 
and this was the culmination. 

A “ good cry ” was a relief ; it did her good, 
harmed no one else and cleared the atmosphere 
as showers are wont to do. Still, it left its traces 
in her eyes, and Hetty, knocking at the door an 
hour later, detected them as soon as she was ad- 
mitted. 

It was one of Hetty’s “ blue days,” as Sunday 
not unfrequently proved, since it enforced a pause 
in ordinary avocations, and so gave time for 
thoughts which always awakened restless dis- 
content and dissatisfaction with herself and her 
surroundings. She talked of ordinary subjects 
for a few minutes, flitting somewhat irrelevantly 
from one topic to another, and then, with another 
glance at her companion’s face — grave and quiet 
enough now — suddenly said, 

“You see how it is, Eunice; it is just as I 
said. We can’t stay in the world and live out 
of it; it isn’t much use trying. We have to do 
pretty nearly as everybody else does, whether we 
think it the right way or not. Despite all your 
trouble, see what came of it.” 

“After all, there has really nothing very 
dreadful come of it, except one spoiled pud- 
ding,” laughed Eunice, awakened hy something 
in Hetty’s dreary tone to a sudden realization of 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


97 


how absurdly small her tribulation really was. 
“ I’m willing to confess that it was horrible 
enough in its way : Bridget did her best in that 
direction ; but the fact that I have been silly 
enough to mourn over it to-day doesn’t prove 
that I am foolish enough to give up trying to do 
right all the rest of my life because of it. Why, 
Hetty, what a proposition ! We think Esau 
made a wretchedly bad bargain in selling his 
birthright for a mess of pottage when he was 
hungry, and shall I let mine go for the sake 
of one poor raw pudding that nobody could 
eat ?” 

But Hetty only smiled faintly. 

“ It isn’t just the dinner, of course ; you know 
that as well as I,” she persisted : “ it’s what peo- 
ple think about all such things.” 

“Well, what can they think in this particular 
case?” said Eunice, determined to look at the 
question fairly, for her own enlightenment as 
well as for Hetty’s. “Louise will think I am 
more scrupulous than wise — just as she did before 
— and also that I did not succeed very well; 
which is partly true. Rose” — her face clouded 
a little at remembrance of the words her own 
impatient answer had called forth — “I do not 
know what Rose really does think.” 

“ No one ever does, about anything,” declared 
Hetty. 

“And those strangers,” pursued Eunice, 


98 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ know only wliat they saw, and the most they 
can possibly think is that your brother’s wife is 
not a model housekeeper ; which is not very flat- 
tering to my vanity, certainly, but not an un- 
bearable affliction, after all. Then there are 
Tom and you and I.” 

“ And that is all,” said Hetty, amused, in spite 
of herself, at this cool way of dissecting the fam- 
ily bugbear, What-Will-They-Think ? 

“ No, not all.” Eunice’s voice grew low and 
reverent. “ The most important question is. 
What does God think of it?” 

She did not attempt to answer it, but her face, 
as Hetty watched it in the twilight, grew so quiet 
and peaceful that it told its own story of the 
strength and comfort that thought had brought. 

A little fluttering sigh — Hetty’s — broke the 
silence presently, and Eunice, withdrawing her 
gaze from the western sky, looked down upon 
her smilingly : 

“No, Hetty dear; there is only One whose 
opinion is decisive, and just in proportion to our 
being guided by that shall we become independ- 
ent of all lower and faulty ones.” 

Hetty looked at her sister wistfully. There 
was a rest in all this that she would have liked 
to claim for herself, and yet — No, she was not 
sure. She only repeated her old complaint, 
throwing the blame of all shortcomings on — 
She did not stop to think whom : 


SEVERAL THINGS. 


99 


“ Well, it is hard to know just what is right, 
and it is almost impossible to do it while we have 
to live in a world like this.” 

“ It is not so much our being in the world as 
the world being in us that is the trouble,” an- 
swered Eunice, thoughtfully. 


CHAPTER VI. 


HEPHZISAH. 

O N the night when Mrs. Thomas Wilber had 
looked over those big hooks from the store 
and so bravely laid her plans for retrenchment, 
there was one important factor that she had not 
taken into account — Bridget Mulroony. Bridget 
objected to innovations, resented interference and 
utterly scouted economy ; so that projects which 
looked very feasible in the quiet of the lady’s 
own room assumed a totally different aspect when 
she attempted to carry them out in the kitchen. 
Nevertheless, she was surprised when Bridget 
one morning presented herself, bonneted and 
shawled, with the remark that she “ couldn’t be 
acquaintin’ herself wid new ways,” and an- 
nounced her intention of departing immediately. 

“ Bridget gone ! Then I’m afraid we are in a 
dilemma indeed,” exclaimed Louise when the 
tidings were reluctantly communicated to her. 
She did not add, “ I thought this would be the 
result of your fine schemes of improvement,” 
but her manner said it as plainly as words could 
have done. 

100 


HEPHZIBAH. 


101 


Even Tom looked discomfited by the intelli- 
gence. 

“ Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake in 
letting her go, little woman ?” he asked, doubt- 
fully. “ Louise always seemed to think Bridget 
was rather a treasure.” 

The “ little woman ” resolutely closed her lips 
over the explanation that Louise had allowed her 
treasure to become a very costly one, and re- 
marked instead that she hadn’t been allowed a 
choice of keeping or not keeping : Bridget had 
decided the case for herself. 

“ It is simply a question of finding her suc- 
cessor,” she said, with an effort to speak gayly. 

“And that is not a simple question, by any 
means,” commented Louise, with impressive 
gravity. “Eunice really has no idea of the 
difficulty of securing efficient, or even tolerable, 
help in a city like this.” 

It was a point upon which Eunice was des- 
tined to obtain speedy enlightenment. The in- 
telligence office set its machinery in motion with 
the usual results. Ann, who could not cook, 
was followed by Ellen, who had an unconquer- 
able repugnance to cleanliness, and she in turn 
was superseded by Maggie, who had a passion 
for breaking china and a spirit of benevolence 
which caused her to distribute the sugar, tea and 
cold meat among her various needy relatives. 

Those were uncomfortable days for Eunice. 


102 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Rose did not trouble herself at all about the 
matter, and Louise so evidently viewed all these 
domestic disturbances as the evil effects of not 
following her own excellent methods and advice 
that her sister-in-law brought as few of them to 
her notice as possible. She plodded through 
many a weary day, overtasking her own strength 
in the intervals between “ helps ” rather than 
admit her need of the assistance which, to do 
Louise justice, she would have given had it been 
asked. Louise’s dignity had been wounded in 
having this new-comer intimate, by adopting 
different measures, that the establishment of 
which she, Louise Wilber, had been mistress 
was not so perfect but that it might be improved. 
Privately she decided that, since Eunice would 
not accept the wisdom of another’s experience, it 
might be beneficial for her to test her own ; so 
she left Eunice to solve the kitchen problem as 
best she could. 

Eunice, finding the whole matter left in her 
own hands, finally settled it in an entirely unex- 
pected fashion. One day, when the pantry, 
kitchen and cellar had been toilsomely put in 
order after the departure of the last incumbent, 
and ETetty, who had been aiding in the task to 
the best of her “ disability,” as she laughingly 
said, had vanished up stairs, the mistress of the 
domain seated herself in her once-more-comfort- 
able realm to rest and meditate. 


HEPHZIBAH. 


103 


“ This forlorn series of dissolving-views must 
come to an end some time, and certainly the soon- 
er the better,” she said, decidedly. “ I can think 
of only one satisfactory way of ending it, so far 
as I am concerned, and I have scarcely dared to 
consider that for fear it might he unsatisfactory 
to others. But if the rest of the family really 
have no further suggestions to offer, and have 
quietly relegated the whole problem to me, why 
shouldn’t I adopt the only adequate and sensible 
solution that presents itself?” 

A very restful and comfortable solution it was 
that suddenly rose before her mental vision — a 
picture of the cozy old home-kitchen and the 
faithful, efficient genius who had ruled there. 
But could that bit of the old tree be safely graft- 
ed on the new ? A host of remembered peculi- 
arities on the one side and newly-discovered ones 
upon the other made her hesitate for a moment. 
Cautious mayhaps and possibilities whispered 
their doubts, and then she put them determined- 
ly aside. 

“ I’ll trust Hephzibah, and — Yes, I’ll trust 
the others too, when once they come to know 
her,” she said ; and the letter was written and 
posted before she sought her afternoon’s hardly- 
earned rest. 

“ The muffins are excellent, but the cook looks 
tired,” observed Tom, at the supper-table. “ I 
suppose Barbara — was the last one named Bar- 


104 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

bara ? — went away to-day. Well, shall I try 
again to-morrow and see what can be found?” 

“ I think not ; I wrote for Hephzibah this 
afternoon,” his wife answered, quietly. 

“ ‘ Hephzibah ’ ?” Tom repeated the name 
wonderingly, with only a vague impression that 
it was linked with something pleasant. Then 
the association suddenly flashed upon him, and 
his face brightened : “ The very one of all 
others, if only she will come! How odd you 
never thought of her before !” 

Eunice only smiled, and did not answer for her 
thoughts. 

Louise looked up with quick curiosity and in- 
terest. She did not know who Hephzibah was 
but the name was neither Irish nor German, and 
it sounded — Well, it sounded as if it might 
be in some way connected with Aunt Nancy ; 
and she had a very vivid remembrance of Aunt 
Nancy. She experienced her first uncomfortable 
misgiving concerning the results of the let-alone 
policy which she had so serenely pursued, but slie 
was wise enough to see that it was now too late 
for advice or remonstrance, and so she asked no 
questions, but simply waited. 

There was no long waiting for any one. 
Hephzibah answered the letter by arriving with- 
in three days, bag and baggage. Her keen eyes 
scanned the exterior of the house, the hall and 
all its appointments, as if she were swiftly read- 


HEPHZIBAH. 


105 


ing the character of the family, but she was very 
chary of her words until Eunice had shown her 
to the room she was to occupy and no one else 
was within sight or hearing. Then she sudden- 
ly deposited in a chair the carpet-bag to which 
she had clung so tenaciously, and, laying one 
brown hand on Eunice’s arm, bent upon her 
face a kindly searching glance. 

“ Child, I’m particular glad to see you again,” 
she said, with an odd little break in her voice. 

“ And I’m particularly glad to see you, with good 
reason,” answered Eunice, her eyes shining at the 
old familiar appellation, even while she secretly 
wondered what Louise would have thought had 
she heard it. “ It was good of you to come at 
once to stay, Hephzibah ; I did not expect you 
would be courageous enough for that until you 
had viewed the ground, and had had a little time 
to decide whether you would like the city and 
things as they are here.” 

“ Well,” said Hephzibah, deliberately untying 
her bonnet-strings, “ when the Lord called the 
Israelites to go through the Red Sea or across 
the Jordan, or anywheres else, he didn’t tell ’em 
to he careful to leave a way to get back if it 
didn’t suit ’em. He said, ‘ Speak to the children 
of Israel that they go forward;’ he didn’t say 
anything about their going backward ; and I 
reckon, when he calls a body to go anywhere 
now, it’s about the same as it was then.” 


106 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“And were you so sure it was his call?” ques- 
tioned Eunice, remembering her hastily-written 
letter and the thoughts which had led to it. 

“ Well ” — the knotted brown hands dropped 
again — “ there was nothing special to keep me 
where I was. The call of them that needs us 
mostly always is His call ; and when I’d turned 
it over in my mind, and thought about it and 
prayed about it, I didn’t see no reason to mis- 
doubt the order ; and so I came.” 

The words were like a breath from the dear 
old home whose inner life Eunice had sorely 
missed. She decided that neither had she any 
reason to “misdoubt” the ordering, and went 
down stairs reassured. 

There was much that was reassuring, and 
comfortable as well, in the arrangement of the 
tea-table that evening, and even Louise bright- 
ened visibly, though she did not join in the en- 
comiums Tom bestowed. She intended to reserve 
her opinion — or, at least, all expression of it — 
but she could not refrain the next day from gra- 
ciously explaining to a caller whom Hephzibah 
had admitted : 

“ An old servant in the family of my sister- 
in-law. She has her peculiarities, of course — 
these old family-servants always have, I believe 
— but she is quite devoted to Llrs. Wilber and 
such a treasure in the kitchen.” 

The remark and the visitor’s murmur of “So 


HEPHZIBAH. 


107 


fortunate!” floated up to Eunice, who softly 
laughed. 

“ If only they will accept Hephzibah’s oddities 
as antique, and therefore valuable I” she said. 

Meanwhile, Hephzibah went on her way with- 
out a thought that it was other than the proper 
and expected one, and the gray eyes under her 
shaggy brows took keen though silent note of 
all her new surroundings. She lingered in the 
pleasant room one morning after the breakfast- 
things had been removed. It was the second or 
third day after her arrival, and she had tarried 
before ; but this morning, when Tom had stopped 
a little later than usual, it was so marked that 
Louise observed it. 

“Your — help — does not know quite what to 
do next ?” she suggested, in a quiet aside to her 
sister-in-law, with a momentary hesitation over 
the title to be employed. 

Eunice, in the light of home memories, inter- 
preted the waiting more correctly ; but she said, 
though with slightly-heightened color, 

“ That is all, Hephzibah ; I will dust these 
rooms myself.” 

A moment later Tom went down the street, 
waving his good-bye in at the window, and Eu- 
nice began her task with sober face. She wished, 
without caring to ask herself why, that she had 
not announced her intention of having cream- 
puffs for dinner, the particular kind of cream- 


108 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


puffs that she always made herself, and which 
would necessitate a half hour in the kitchen. 
She dusted and arranged every article with slow 
minuteness, picking the dry leaves from the 
plants in the window, folding every paper with 
deliberate exactness and spending an unusual 
length of time in refilling the vases ; but, how- 
ever prolonged, the occupation must come to an 
end, and, besides, she had promised to attend to 
that dessert, so she reluctantly donned an apron 
at last and went down stairs. 

That kitchen did not look like a place to be 
shunned, so bright, clean and orderly was it. 
Hephzibah herself viewed it with satisfaction, 
and looked up well pleased when its mistress 
entered. She said nothing, however, beyond a 
question concerning the sugar and a remark 
about grating the lemons, until the puffs ap- 
proached completion and the eggs had been 
whisked into snowy foam. Even then her 
words took the form of an apology : 

“ I was thinking this morning how different 
city ways are from being on a farm, where you 
can fix times more to suit yourself : that’s why I 
stopped. I suppose it is hard to get together 
reg’lar in the morning. I’ve noticed the girls 
ain’t down sometimes till Mr, Wilber goes, and 
sometimes he has to go earlier, likely?” 

“Yes,” answered Eunice, sifting the powdered 
sugar very carefully through her fingers. 


HEPHZIBAH. 


109 


“ Well, it’s a pity,” said Hephzibah, regretful- 
ly — “ a great pity. Still, if it ain’t possible to 
belp it, it’s a great comfort to remember that 
family prayers ain’t tbe only kind we can begin 
a day witb. But I’d ratber wait at nigbt after 
this. I s’pose you thought I was too tired tbe 
first night or two, though I kept expectin’ you’d 
call me. But I don’t mind sitting up a little 
later.” 

This was what Mrs. Wilber had anticipated, but 
had not wanted. The sugar was all sifted, but 
she stirred the white flakes into still lighter foam 
for a moment before she answered : 

“ There are no evening prayers either, Heph- 
zibah.” 

“ I — I thought this was a Christian family ?” 
That was all Hephzibah said, and the words 
came rather slowly and doubtfully, but, with her 
peculiar intonation, they seemed to mean a great 
deal. 

“ Why, I hope we — I hope they are — most 
of the family, at least. Rose and Dane do not 
claim anything of the kind. But people differ, 
Hephzibah — even Christian people. And educa- 
tion. You know Mr. Wilber’s mother died when 
the children were young, and his father a few 
years later. I presume that made a difierence in 
the family in many ways.” 

Hephzibah said nothing, and, indeed, upon 
momentary reflection, Eunice perceived that she 


110 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

had really said nothing herself — ^nothing to the 
purpose, at least. 

“ Of course it is wrong — not the best and 
highest type of Christian life,” Eunice began 
again, more slowly. “ There are many things 
I should like to change, and that I hope to 
change before very long, and this is one of them, 
though I have not yet proposed it to any one. 
But I want to be very careful and considerate, 
because I know we do not all feel alike in such 
matters; and so I have been only waiting for 
some favorable opportunity.” 

Still, Hephzibah was silent — a silence that was 
growing exasperating. 

Unconsciously, Mrs. Wilber’s tone lost some- 
thing of its kindly familiarity and became more 
coolly dignified and distant : 

“ It isn’t pleasant to speak of all this, but, 
since you have noticed — as, of course, I know 
you must — it is best to explain fairly. Such 
things grieve me, and all the more because they 
are in my own home, where I am really mis- 
tress, even though I feel that I am a new-comer 
and must gradually and wisely win my way and 
win them all to higher things. It is the little 
leaven, you see, Hephzibah ?” 

“No; if you ask me fair and square, I’m 
bound to say I don’t,” answered Hephzibah, 
turning squarely about. “ Not in this particular 
case, any way. If it’s a duty, why it is one ; and 


HEPHZIBAH. 


Ill 


I always s’posed a plain duty cut its own way 
clear. If you’re to do it, why don’t yon do it ? 
It’s true the Lord did lead the Israelites by a 
roundabout road that took ’em forty years, but it 
was because they refused to go ahead in the 
straight one when it was right before ’em ; and 
their cautiousness and lack of faith cost ’em dear. 
Child, I ain’t a-forgettin’ my place, nor about 
‘ Servants, be obedient,’ and all that ; but I’m a 
sister in the Lord, too — ^yes, and old enough to 
be an elder, seeing I’ve known you since you was 
a little slip of a girl ; and if I say anything, I’m 
bound to say the plain truth. Don’t you get to 
thinking the Lord’s commandments are like a 
railroad train that can’t be made to go until 
human manoeuvring and engineering build a 
track ; they’ll run themselves, never fear. All 
you’ve got to do is to make sure you’re safe 
aboard and not standing in their way.” 

Those cream-puffs did prove delicious, after 
all, though Eixnice could afterward have given 
no clear account of the ingredients that complet- 
ed them. Her cheeks wore a deeper flush than 
the heat of the kitchen demanded, and she was 
thoroughly perturbed, not to say indignant. It 
really was presuming a great deal upon their old 
relationship for Hephzibah to talk in that way. 
She w'as surprised. No ; on the whole, she was 
not at all surprised, since it was exactly like 
Hephzibah of old, only she had not noticed it 


112 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

SO much, probably, in tbeir simpler, more famil- 
iar intercourse at the farm. She had herself 
been very unwise in attempting any explanation, 
and so giving opportunity for anything of this 
kind. Hephzibah was good and faithful in her 
place, hut the place was certainly not that of 
mentor, Mrs. Wilber decided, with a little flash 
in her eyes, as she rearranged her collar and 
smoothed her hair before the glass in her own 
room — not so much because there was any visi- 
ble disorder to be remedied as because she felt 
disordered. Then something — the burning 
cheeks, perhaps, or the shifting of the leaf- 
shadows on the carpet — suddenly reminded her 
of another day like this, long ago, when she had 
been tossing with fever, burdened with anxiety, 
too, concerning many new responsibilities, and 
missing for the first time the mother-love that 
had always soothed such illnesses. How Heph- 
zibah’s strong convictions and positive assertion 
of them had comforted her fainting heart that 
morning ! and how tender and wdlling the hard 
hands had been through all the weary days that 
followed ! 

It was only a flitting breath of memory flut- 
tering the leaves backward for a moment, but the 
lady’s eyes softened almost to tears : 

“ Dear faithful old soul ! Let her say what 
she will ; it does not matter.” 

But it did matter, for the words would neither 


HEPHZIBAH. 


113 


be frowned down as an impertinence nor smiled 
away as a tolerated weakness. After Eunice had 
so graciously decided to condone the offence of 
the speaker, she found that the speech still re- 
mained to be disposed of on its own account. 
All unconsciously she had been enjoying a very 
self-satisfied sense of her own saintliness. She 
had felt so sure of standing on far higher ground 
than those around her, of devoutly desiring this 
very thing of which she had spoken to Hephzi- 
bah, and of the sweet wisdom and patience of 
her waiting, that this unexpected suggestion of 
unfaithfulness was exceedingly distasteful. She 
would willingly have decided that it was also un- 
just; but the more fully and candidly she pon- 
dered the subject, the more difficult she found it 
to reach that wished-for conclusion. After all, 
had her patient waiting been anything more or 
better than cowardliness? She had hoped and 
prayed, but she had not taken a single stop — the 
step that was far harder now than it would have 
been at first, she acknowledged to herself after 
an hour’s troubled thought. But, in any case, 
she could not put the matter quietly aside again ; 
and so, since there seemed nothing else she could 
do with it, she carried it to her husband that 
evening. 

Tom listened gravely, and then surprised her 
by saying, 

“ Yes, of course it is right. To tell the truth. 


114 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Eunice, I have rathei* wondered that you did not 
suggest it before.” 

“ Why, Tom !” she exclaimed, grieved afresh. 
Then a little natural indignation arose instead : 
“ Why did you not propose it yourself, instead 
of waiting for me ? Was it not as much your 
duty as mine?” 

“ More, perhaps,” answered Tom, slowly. 
“ But the truth is I never even thought of such 
a thing until after I had known you and begun 
to realize how different you were from us in 
many ways. Whatever may be true of us as 
individuals, we have never had any family re- 
ligion ; and I thought that you, who were so far 
beyond me in all these things, would know what 
was wisest and best to do and when to do it. I 
trusted it all to you without saying anything 
about it, and, indeed, without thinking about it 
as I ought to have done, or I should have seen 
that I was placing myself in a wrong position 
and you in an uncomfortable one. But, now 
that we understand each other, we will at once 
do what is right.” 

Very simply and in few words, as was his 
fashion, Tom inaugurated the change. It was 
fortunate for him, and possibly for the family, 
that he was a little obtuse in many respects — not 
sensitive to the electric currents with which the 
domestic atmosphere was often charged, and 
which caused his wife such discomfort. He did 


HEPHZIBAH. 


115 


not notice the flitting expressions on the different 
faces as he quietly announced his purpose. He 
was too earnest and unconscious to be embarrassed, 
too fully assured, now as always, of the superior 
wisdom and good-feeling of his “ women-folk ” 
to suppose that the proposition could really be 
distasteful ; so that it was with the utmost hon- 
esty and directness he explained that his wife 
and himself had been thinking it would be right 
and pleasant for them all, as a Christian family, 
to worship together; he presumed the others 
would think the same. And would Rose — who 
sat at the piano, too much astonished to close it 
— ^play some hymn that all could sing ? 

Hephzibah’s face was radiant, and it was the 
only radiant face in the circle. Tom’s was 
peaceful, but in Eunice’s eyes, seeing what might 
have been through all these months, the penitent 
tears still lingered. Hetty was half awed, half 
frightened and wholly miserable, feeling that she 
ought to rejoice, but not at all sure that she did 
rejoice in the least. As for the others, no one 
objected. As Louise remarked to Rose a little 
later, 

“Of course there was nothing to object to, 
only — I may be peculiar in my views, but it 
has always seemed to me in poor taste, to say the 
least, to drag sacred things in everywhere and 
make them too common.” 

“ Then I should think your aesthetic taste must 


116 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


have been perfectly gratified in this family,” an- 
swered Rose, without looking around, and ap-; 
parently intent only upon arranging her bright 
hair into the desirable number of crimps for the 
night. 

Hephzibah went singing up the back stairs — 
and if her voice was not melodious, her heart 
was — 

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.’’ 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE SIGN ACROSS THE STREET. 

M ES. SHELBY had shown the sincerity of 
her expressed desire for a further acquaint- 
ance by calling upon Mrs. Wilber. This, in 
Louise’s estimation, was exceedingly gratifying ; 
but Eunice, when summoned, had immediately 
appeared in the dress in which she had just come 
from the kitchen, which to the same sister-in-law 
was not at all gratifying. That print wrapper 
was certainly neat and very appropriate for a 
morning in the kitchen. That was the trouble : 
it was too appropriate. It suggested at once the 
realm to which it belonged and the fact that its 
wearer was not free from many little homely 
housewifely cares to which her visitor was prob- 
ably a stranger. 

Louise, who had remained in the parlor partly 
because she was not averse to becoming better 
acquainted with Mrs. Shelby on her own account, 
and partly because she had a feeling that Eunice 
was too unsophisticated properly to estimate or 
know how to make the most of this “ society 
success ” which she had unexpectedly achieved, 
— Louise was really distressed by that dress. 

117 


118 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ Why couldn’t Eunice have known enough 
to change her dress instead of coming in in that 
way — exactly as if Mrs. Shelby were one of her 
country neighbors run in for a morning chat?” 
she said to herself, disgustedly, while the other 
two ladies were exchanging greetings and drop- 
ping into conversation as easily as though cos- 
tumes were unknown. 

That error in dress was a topic which was re- 
vived at the earliest possible moment after the 
caller’s departure. Louise was fully persuaded 
that she owed a duty in that direction not only 
to the family, but to Eunice herself. 

“ How kind she is ! It is very pleasant to 
meet one who knew — my mother.” 

That was Eunice’s comment, with the slight 
pause, the indescribable softening of the voice, at 
the last two words which always set them a little 
apart. 

“ She is a very fine lady, and a very wealthy 
one too — one whose acquaintance is esteemed an 
honor, I assure you. But, my dear Eunice, what 
did she think of your dress ?” 

The change was so sudden, the emphasis so 
impressive, that to Eunice it bordered on ab- 
surdity. She laughed ; 

“ It did not occur to me to ask her, and she 
did not express her opinion. What could she 
think, except that it was calico and clean ? What 
is wrong with it ?” 


THE SIGN ACROSS THE STREET. 


119 


“ Nothing, in the kitchen ; but you might 
have stopped to change it before seeing a caller, 
and such a caller as Mrs. Shelby. She has no 
need to spend her mornings in the kitchen, and 
I presume her sole idea of a morning-dress is 
lof something very handsome.” 

“ Not since she has seen mine,” laughed Eunice. 
Then she added, more seriously, “ But we have 
not a tithe of Mrs. Shelby’s fortune, Louise, and 
cannot afford to live as she does ; and of course 
she understands that perfectly. Why should 
we make a pretence of anything else?” 

“ Oh, I admit it is necessary for us to practice 
a great many petty economies,” said Louise, 
sighing — “ I wish it were not — but I do not see 
the propriety of parading them before the pub- 
lic. It is always well to turn out the best 
side.” 

“ Only it seems to me that the best side must 
be the honest one,” urged Eunice. “ I should 
not care for any friendship founded upon sham, 
if such a thing could be called friendship. I 
want only what really belongs to me.” 

This bit of conversation, which she had over- 
heard, came back to Hetty one day a month or 
two later — not because she wanted to remember 
it, but chiefly because she did not. It was a 
gloomy day with gray sky threatening rain that 
did not fall, and wind that sighed and moaned as 
it swept on its unseen way. The old sign across 


120 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

the street — the “ illuminated text,” as Rose had 
persisted in naming it since Dane had called 
attention to its wording — swayed and creaked 
drearily. The sound annoyed Hetty, though 
less from its discordance than because it so con- 
stantly drew her eyes in that direction and re- 
called the whole train of uncomfortable thoughts 
that some way had come to be linked with it : 

WOODHAYE, STUBBLE & CO., 
Builders. 

“Well, what of it?” Hetty demanded of her- 
self, impatiently, as for the twentieth time her 
eyes scanned the swinging sign from her seat 
at the window that gray afternoon. “ There is 
nothing very remarkable, either in the statement 
or in the names, that I need be so haunted by 
them. I wish Dane had turned his brilliant 
imagination in some other direction. If it is a 
text, he and Rose have certainly as much reason 
to be tormented by it as I ; but I presume it 
never troubled either of them.” 

Hetty assured herself that it had no connec- 
tion whatever with the matter in hand, the ques- 
tion she was trying to decide; nevertheless, it 
ran as a sort of undercurrent of unconsciousness 
through all her thoughts. The creaking grew 
almost to a groan in some of the fierce gusts 
that swept around tlie corner, and the wind it- 


THE SIGN ACROSS THE STREET. 


121 


self seemed rejDeating the words of the context 
in disjointed snatches : 

“ Wood, hay, stubble. Let every man take 
heed how he buildeth !” 

“ The fire shall try every man’s work of what 
sort it is.” 

“ The day shall declare it — that day shall de- 
clare it — loss ! He shall suffer loss.” 

The girl was moodily trying to settle one of 
those tangles that so often beset her. Inclina- 
tion drew her powerfully in one direction, while 
conscience, neither vigorous and healthful enough 
to wield its rightful authority, nor yet so para- 
lyzed as to be utterly silent, fretted and com- 
plained like the peevish invalid it was. Lizzie 
May had started a new project — a club for ama- 
teur theatricals, which was to meet weekly and 
be, as she declared, “ perfectly splendid !” Het- 
ty had been present when the idea was first sug- 
gested. It had been in a circle more exclusively 
Lizzie’s than her own, since Lizzie resembled the 
lilies in neither toiling nor spinning and yet 
seeming able to vie with a Solomon in the way 
of dress. Many things that were mere mat- 
ters of course to Lizzie and some of her acquaint- 
ances were to Hetty matters of much study and 
close contriving, if she managed them at all. So 
she had thought of various objections to this 
plan ; but when the other members of the party 
had greeted it enthusiastically, she had not been 


122 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


brave enough to mention her difficulty. She had 
put aside troublesome after-thoughts concerning 
her own part in it, and avoided the necessity for 
a decision by assuring herself that the fancy 
would end with the evening and Lizzie would 
forget all about it. 

But Lizzie did nothing of the kind ; she con- 
sulted and selected and promptly completed all 
the arrangements for her enterprise, and then 
gayly brought the tidings to Hetty : 

“ It’s to be the nicest thing ! The Van Horns 
and Snyders, and ever so many more, will be in 
it, and there will be such fun getting up the cos- 
tumes ! Some of them will be lovely, too. We 
are to meet every Wednesday evening. Oh yes ! 
here is the list of names ; I thought I had it 
somewhere and from the depths of her dainty 
shopping-bag Miss Lizzie shook out a crumpled 
bit of pink paper. “ Miss Jones — Wasn’t it 
funny Mrs. Jones wasn’t quite sure whether she 
approved of theatricals until she found you were 
in it ? See what a reputation you have for being 
a sober girl ! I told her you were one of the 
very first to start it.” 

Which statement, if not exactly the truth, 
was so nearly true that Lizzie probably believed 
it, and Hetty, with her eyes running over that 
list of names — a number of them Lizzie’s most 
stylish and wealthy acquaintances — was not cou- 
rageous enough to contradict it, nor sure whether 


THE SIGN ACROSS THE STREET. 


123 


she felt most conscience-stricken or flattered by 
the position in which she found herself. Some 
of the glamour vanished with Lizzie’s presence 
and merry chatter, and there remained a dissat- 
isfied, uncomfortable feeling of something to be 
settled. Hetty hated things that had to be set- 
tled. If she could but have drifted on in one 
way or another without so often coming to sharp 
turns where she was forced to choose her course, 
she would have been at once a worse and a more 
comfortable girl than was now possible. It was 
not so much any scruples against the theatricals 
in themselves that troubled her as a consciousness 
that the whole trend of the engagement, its in- 
terests, society and atmosphere, would be away 
from the path in which she ought to be climbing. 
That arranging of costumes, too, of which Lizzie 
had spoken so admiringly, would be a constantly- 
recurring expense, and to her not a slight one. 
It would involve a host of petty plannings, 
scrimpings and annoyances to maintain her 
standing with the others. It was all very well 
for Eunice to say that she wanted no friendship 
founded on such shams — Hetty supposed that 
was the fight way to feel — but, oh dear! she 
did want to go with other girls and do as they 
did. She had more than once half envied Lizzie 
her gay times in this very set, and now, when 
there was a chance for her to share them, it was 
too bad not to do it. 


124 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


But, as if the question were not tangled 
enough without that, they had quietly selected 
Wednesday evening — prayer-meeting evening — 
for their weekly gathering. Now, Hetty seldom 
attended the prayer-meeting ; and when she did, 
it was from an overpowering sense of duty, and 
not in the least from inclination. But to find 
reasonable excuses for staying away from week 
to week was one thing, and deliberately to give 
up all intention of going for a whole season and 
set aside the evening for something else was quite 
another thing. Yet she did not want to give up 
the private theatricals. 

“ Though I wouldn’t mind so much, for I sup- 
pose I can’t enjoy them in peace, any way,” she 
said, impatiently. “ If it were not for having to 
explain to Lizzie and the others ! What can I 
say?” 

Still the old sign creaked its message^* and 
from Eunice’s room a low snatch of song came 
faintly through the hall : 

^ I’m nearer my home in heaven to-day 
Than ever I’ve been before.’ ” 

The cheerful cadence in the tones of the song- 
stress and the solemn gladness of the lines jarred 
upon the listener. 

“I’m not like Eunice,” she said, wistfully. 
“ Oh dear ! I’m not like the other girls, either. 
Why can’t I just go on as they do, and enjoy 


THE SIGN ACROSS THE STREET. 


125 


things without stopping to question at every 
step? I do it more and more.” 

‘^‘Nearer the great white throne to-day, 

Nearer the crystal sea,’ ” 


sang the unconsciously-answering voice. 

“ Well, I wish I needn’t decide anything about 
it,” Hetty murmured, half petulantly. “ I wish 
something would happen and settle it for me. — 
Dane !” 

The last word was an exclamation. A shad- 
ow, real or imaginary, had crossed the window ; 
and when she glanced up, she fancied for an in- 
stant that she saw her brother’s face. It was 
only for an instant ; when she turned fully toward 
the window, no one was in sight. 

“ And Dane is a hundred miles away !” she 
said, yet half expecting to see the door open and 
admit^ him. “ How queer that I should have 
thought of him ! I wonder if I really saw any 
one?” 

Hetty pressed her face against the glass and 
looked up and down the street. There were 
few pedestrians that dreary day, and she could 
discover none near enough to have visited the 
window. Unless some one had come in — Was 
that a light step on the stair ? She opened the 
door into the hall, but no one was visible in that 
direction, either, and with a nervous laugh she 
closed it again : 


126 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ What possesses me to-day ? The wind and 
that groaning old sign are making the whole 
house seem uncanny.” 

Tired of her solitariness and oppressed by the 
weather without and the thoughts within, she 
decided to go and sit with Eunice, but as she 
reached the hall another couplet of that same 
hymn stopped her : 

“ ‘ Nearer leaving my cross to-day, 

Nearer taking my crown.’ ” 


She hesitated a moment, then slowly turned and 
sought the kitchen. 

The gloom had not penetrated there, or Heph- 
zibah had not succumbed to its influence. She 
was moving about in a brisk, pleasant little bus- 
tle of cookery, while the fire in her shining range 
crackled a cheery defiance to the wind and damp. 
For a little while Hetty watched it all with a 
sort of idle interest, and then, with a wonder not 
altogether new, began to study the contentment 
of the seamed and homely face before her. 

“ Hephzibah,” she questioned, “ don’t you 
think it is hard always to act like a Chris- 
tian ?” 

“ Well, yes, I s’pose it must be,” answered 
Hephzibah, slowly, “ unless a body is one, and 
then they act like it naturally.” 

Hetty’s gray eyes opened wide at this view of 
the case ; to her it was so new as to be astonishing. 


THE SIGN ACROSS THE STREET. 


127 


“ Why — ” she began, and paused. 

“You never had to try to act like your fa- 
ther’s daughter, I take it,” pursued Hephzibah, 
“nor like your brother’s sister, nor as if you 
were at home in your own house. You are all 
these things, and you could hardly help acting 
like it if you tried.” 

“ But that is a different thing, Hephzibah. It 
is something you know and can’t feel one way 
about at one time and another way at another 
time ; it is settled. But about being a Christian 
— of course I mean feeling like one as well as 
acting like one — it is hard to be sure ; and feel- 
ings change so !” 

“ ‘ Feelings ’ ! I should think so !” Hephzi- 
bah laughed her short peculiar laugh. “ When 
I was a slip of a girl, I got hold of a medical 
almanac — they was scarcer than they are now, 
or I wouldn’t have made so much ’count of it — 
and took to reading it. I studied the symptoms 
till I had every one — a pain here and a sickness 
there. One day I had the consumption for sure, 
and the next I just knew I was getting down 
with some dreadful fever. I moped, and didn’t 
eat, and sat by the fireplace, till one day Granny 
came along and gave me a sharp cuff on the 
ear. ‘ There’s no sense in your sittin’ here and 
watchin’ yourself to death,’ says she, ‘when 
there’s washin’, bakin’, and nobody knows what, 
to be done. Take your fingers off* your pulse 


128 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

and go to work.’ Well, I was pretty mad for a 
minute, I can tell you, but it cured me ; and I’ve 
learned since that our spiritual health is pretty 
much like that of our bodies. We can’t he 
healthy while we spend all our time watching 
our symptoms ; there is too much work to be 
done in the world for that. We must settle it 
once for all that we belong to Christ. Why 
shouldn’t we know it of our Elder Brother 
as well as of any other brother, and then 
take our fingers off our pulse and go to 
work ?” 

“ The words tasted like a tonic,” Hetty said to 
herself, and for the time they seemed to have the 
effect of one. She brightened in the atmosphere 
of the cheery, busy kitchen, and had shaken off 
much of her moodiness before Louise returned 
from the historical club that had engrossed her 
afternoon. This society held its regular meet- 
ings despite the rain, because, tis Rose com- 
plained, “ people who had been dead a few hun- 
dred years were too important to be neglected 
even in weather that would make it impossible 
to attend to any one living.” 

With the curtains dropped over the windows 
to shut out the evening gloom, the old sign across 
the street was at last invisible, and Louise had 
brought back from her club a breath from the 
outer world in an item or two of news concern- 
ing people who were not historic. 


THE SION ACROSS THE STREET. 


129 


Rose and Hetty were listening eagerly, so that 
Eunice, coming down stairs a little later, found 
an animated group in the parlor. 

“But where is Dane?” she asked, glancing 
around the room. 

“ ‘ Dane ’ ? Why where should he be but in 
Chicago, as usual ?” questioned Louise, in sur- 
prise. “ He isn’t home.” 

“ I thought he had come. I didn’t speak to 
him, but I thought I saw him go up stairs an 
hour ago,” said Eunice, looking bewildered. “ It 
must have been a mistake, if no one else has seen 
him. My door stood a little ajar, and some one 
passed it quickly. I glanced up ; it was only a 
glance, but I thought I saw Dane. I wondered 
that I had heard nothing of his coming, but I 
fully expected to find him when I came down 
stairs.” 

“ How queer !” exclaimed Hetty ; “ I thought 
I saw Dane look in at the window for an instant 
while I was sitting here this afternoon. It 
startled me, but I concluded afterward that it 
had been only a trick of my imagination ; for 
there was really no one in sight when I looked 
carefully.” 

“ I presume not. You . certainly need not 
have expected to see Dane,” said Louise, de- 
cidedly. “ If he came home, it would probably 
he for the pleasure of visiting his family, and 
not to indulge in such absurd performances as 


130 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

peering in at windows or climbing stealthily up 
stairways.” 

“ Nevertheless, we will satisfy our curiosity by 
examining the apartment of the ghost,” laughed 
Rose. But she returned in a minute or two say- 
ing that Dane’s room was unoccupied and bore 
no trace of having been visited by its owner. 

“ Of course not !” Louise’s tone was slightly 
contemptuous. “ Hetty only imagined she saw 
some one, as she says, and, as for Eunice’s vis- 
ion, it was probably Hephzibah, who preferred 
the front stairs to the back ones. What possible 
reason could Dane have for coming home in that 
style ?” 

Eunice laughed. 

“ Hephzibah doesn’t bear a very striking re- 
semblance to Dane,” she said. “ However, my 
apparition flitted so quickly that I am not at all 
certain of its identity.” 

But Hetty looked troubled. She was not 
really superstitious enough to view the incident 
as a warning or an omen, yet it impressed her 
unpleasantly. Whether the feeling were a vague 
foreboding or only the lingering effect of her 
dreary afternoon, it weighed upon her spirits all 
the evening. 

With a new day, however, came the sunlight, 
dispelling mists of all kinds. It is scarcely in 
the nature of eighteen-year-old girlhood to resist 
the charm of a sunny morning, and Hetty had 


THE SION ACROSS THE STREET. 


131 


nearly forgotten her yesterday even before Tom 
came home with the intelligence that busied all 
thoughts for a time. His store had been robbed 
the previous night. 

“ Your store ? Broken open last night ?” 
questioned the chorus of voices. 

“ It wasn’t broken open ; that’s the strange 
thing about it,” answered Tom, slowly. “ The 
door seems to have been merely unlocked and 
locked again, and the money quietly taken by 
one who knew where to find it.” 

“ The clerks,” suggested Louise at once, though 
Tom’s modest establishment afforded scant ma- 
terial for suspicion in that direction. 

“Both gone before I left last night, and I 
should not suspect them in any case,” replied 
Tom, promptly. “ The old safe is a very ordi- 
nary one, fire-proof rather than burglar-proof, 
as I never intend to keep large sums of money 
there. It happened to hold rather more than 
usual last night, but no one knew that but my- 
self. The only person besides myself who has a 
key to the store is Watchman Wills. It is one 
of the places under his care, and he occasionally 
uses it as a sort of headquarters while he is on 
his nightly rounds. But, oddly enough, I had 
his key as well as my own last night. My own 
was not in my pocket when I went to lock up — ” 

“ You had lost it and some one found it,” sug- 
gested Louise again. 


132 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ No ; I left it at home. The storm made it 
so much cooler that I changed my coat when I 
came home at noon. I remember taking the key 
out of my pocket and laying it down with the 
intention of putting it in the pocket of the other 
coat, but I went away and forgot it. I did not 
miss it until I was closing the store for the night, 
and then, as I stood at the outer door wondering 
how to manage. Wills came along, and I took his 
key.” 

“And the other was at home all the time?” 
asked Eunice. 

“ Oh yes ; I remembered leaving it. I must 
have brought it down in my hand and laid it 
on the rack while I was getting my hat and um- 
brella, for there’s where I found it. I don’t 
know that any one really did go in by the door : 
we can’t find any way that they went in or out, 
for every window and door was still securely 
fastened this morning ; but it is certain that 
some one had been there, for the safe was pried 
open and the money was gone.” 

The affair seemed likely to remain a mystery, 
for the most careful investigation of the premises 
failed to reveal any clue to the thief or to the 
manner of his entrance and exit. The amount 
stolen was not very large, but, as Tom said rather 
dejectedly, it was more than he knew how to 
spare, and there were bills the meeting of 
which made the loss a serious inconvenience. 


THE SIGN ACROSS THE STREET. 


133 


“ However, we need not worry about it,” he 
added at once, as if to atone for his momentary 
lapse, since mentioning any difficulties of liis own 
was unlike Tom. 

“We can be thankful we lost no more — after 
the manner of the man who rushed home when 
he heard a bank had broken, but was relieved 
by finding that he had no bills on that bank, nor 
on any other,” said Rose. 

A week later Dane came home in propria, per- 
sona, and made merry over the story of his ghost- 
ly double, declaring that he was “ entirely too 
substantial to fiit up stairways or vanish into thin 
air.” He was in the best of spirits over what 
he called the “ success of a little business enter- 
prise,” and he promptly disposed of Tom’s em- 
barrassment by insisting upon advancing him a 
sum more than equal to the amount of money 
lost. 

“ Though it isn’t a loan, old fellow ; I don’t 
call it that,” he said, heartily. “ You have done 
so much for all of us that it’s time somebody 
began to pay back. I hope to do a great deal in 
that line before long, everything is going so w'ell 
now.” 

“ But I don’t see how you can expect to get 
rich so fast. Are you sure you won’t need 
this?” questioned Tom, reluctantly accepting 
the offer. 

“Oh, I have enough more to do me for a 


134 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


while,” Dane laughed. “And, as for making 
money, in a great rushing city there are hosts 
of chances for good investments that you never 
see in this slow old place. I mean to have you 
all out of this before long.” 

Dane was lavish in his generosity, as in every- 
thing else, and, with his handsome flushed face 
— too deeply flushed, Eunice had thought, with 
a little start, when she first saw him, but the im- 
pression wore away later in the evening — he 
looked more than his ten years younger than 
Tom, and seemed almost boyish in the exhilara- 
tion that became him so well. During his brief 
visit he was overflowing with brilliant plans and 
anticipations for the whole family, and the rosy 
atmosphere created by his hopes lingered even 
after his departure. 

“ How delightful it would be to go away to 
the lakes or mountains for a summer !” said 
Rose. “ Dane’s talk of it as something probable 
makes me impatient to go.” 

“ How nice it will be to have even our own 
horse and carriage to drive around town !” sighed 
Hetty. “And Dane thinks he can easily man- 
age that in some way before long.” 

“ I do not know any honest way of managing 
such things except by paying for them,” an- 
swered Tom, gravely, “and I do not see how 
Dane can do that very soon.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


IFt 

R ose was in the kitchen one morning clean- 
ing some lace. The lace could have been 
cleaned elsewhere, but Rose had discovered that 
she liked the kitchen under the new r%ime. 
She enjoyed Hephzibah’s oddities, and incited 
the display of them to a degree that vexed 
Louise. 

“ Her ‘ odd remarks,’ as you call them, border 
very nearly upon disrespect, in my opinion,” 
said the latter young lady : “ they ought never 
to be tolerated ; and, as for her absurd fancy that 
she must take any interest in the family and its 
doings, beyond her own work, it should be dis- 
couraged most decidedly. It always is by me.” 

“ I haven’t a doubt of it. But if she really 
has views upon morals as well as upon muffins, 
she can’t help it, and why shouldn’t I enjoy 
them ? I’m willing she should be interested in 
me if only she will amuse me,” laughed Rose. 

“ You ought to care something about preserv- 
ing the dignity of the family,” said Louise, with 
chilling disapproval. 

“ Don’t know how, my dear ; I’ve always left 

135 


136 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

that, with all the other preserving and pickling, 
to you,” declared Rose, with imperturbable good- 
nature. 

But if Hephzibah had any views upon morals 
that day, she was, for some reason, disinclined to 
announce them. She was busily paring apples 
for pies, and was humming to herself — rather 
discordantly, it must be confessed — snatches of 
hymns while she worked ; and Rose’s efforts to 
lure her into conversation met replies more re- 
spectful than they deserved, considering their 
motive, but very brief. She would express no 
opinion concerning the opera, for which Rose 
explained she was preparing her lace, neither 
would she render any verdict upon operatic 
singing in church-choirs — though Rose had 
fancied that might be a spicy subject — beyond 
the commiserating conclusion, 

“ They may be a-makin’ ‘ melody in their 
hearts,’ I s’pose, even when they’re screechin’ 
worst with their voices, poor things ! It ain’t 
the kind of singing I like, but I don’t feel no 
call to judge ’em.” 

Possibly her charity was in part due to a vague 
sense of her own infirmities in the musical line, 
for she was exceedingly fond of communing with 
herself in “ psalms and hymns and spiritual 
songs,” whatever might be said of her rendition 
of them. So in a few minutes she unconsciously 
dropped back to her bit of song : 


IFf 


137 


Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer, 

That calls me from a world of care ” 

Failing on ordinary topics, Rose ventured 
into deeper waters, partly because she wanted 
to hear Hephzibah talk, but chiefly from a mis- 
chievous desire to have something to report to 
Louise. She caught at the last word : 

“Now, that is a subject that perplexes me, 
Hephzibah — prayer.” 

“ I shouldn’t s’pose it had ever bothered you 
much,” said Hephzibah, dryly. 

“ Some say one thing, some another : how is 
one to know whether it is of any use or not ?” 
persisted Rose, ignoring the thrust. 

“ By trying it, I should say,” answered Heph- 
zibah, simply. “ I don’t know of anybody that 
ever found out any other way ; there’s no prom- 
ise that they shall.” 

“ But it may be a beneficial exercise and all 
that, you know, without having any other effect. 
How can you really be sure that God takes any 
notice of your prayers, or that they are heard at 
all ?” Almost unconsciously to Rose herself, a 
little ring of earnestness crept into the last ques- 
tion. 

“ Did you ever send a telegraph-message ?” 
asked Hephzibah, carefully quartering an apple. 

“Yes.” 

“Well, how did you know there was anybody 
at the other end of the line ?” 


138 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ Why, because some one returned an answer, 
of course.” 

“ To be sure ! And it ain’t likely you’d think 
telegraphin’ a very ‘ beneficial exercise’ to keep 
up long unless somebody did answer. Well, 
that’s the same way I know,” said Hephzibah, 
serenely. 

“ I suppose you mean,” said Rose, slowly, 
“ that you get what you ask. But, after all, 
how can you ever be sure that things wouldn’t 
have happened so any way? They might.” 

“And, seeing your telegraph-wires worked by 
’lectricity, I s’pose a thunder-storm might shake 
them into making jnst them queer marks that 
would be your answer. It might, but then it 
would be a very pe-cul-iar thunder-storm,” re- 
plied Hephzibah, pursing her lips. “ Child,” 
she asked, suddenly, “ didn’t you ever have any 
religion ?” 

The question would have shocked Louise, its 
phraseology have reminded her unpleasantly of 
conventicles and camp-meetings. It had the 
effect of banishing Rose’s momentary thought- 
fulness and recalling her old manner. 

“No, I think not, so far as I know the symp- 
toms,” she answered, with a little shrug of her 
shoulders. “There has been a very mild type 
of it in the family, nothing in the least epidemic 
or infectious until since Eunice came, and I never 
caught it.” 


IFf 


139 


Rose expected Hephzibah to be horrified by 
tone and words — that was wbat sbe wished, in- 
deed — but after a moment’s silence Hephzibah 
only asked quietly, 

“ What makes you say until Mrs. Wilber 
came? What do you mean by that?” 

Now, that was exactly the thing Rose did not 
care to define even to herself. It was an admis- 
sion she was reluctant to make in her inmost 
thought, and it had slipped into expression un- 
consciously. She was vexed at her own words 
and at Hephzibah’s notice of them. 

“ ‘ Mean ’ ? Why that hers seems a rather 
more virulent form of the malady, I suppose, 
that is all,” she answered, with a sharpness so 
unusual to her that Hephzibah looked up won- 
deringly. 

Rose’s reckless speeches were seldom bitter. A 
laugh followed this one the next instant, and, 
shaking out the filmy cobweb that had busied 
her hands, she said gayly, 

“ See, Hephzibah ! There’s nothing like gaso- 
line for freshening old lace.” 

The kitchen-range was near ; her motion was 
too quick and careless for the inflammable fluid 
she was using, and in an instant the contents of 
the shallow bowl and the lace in her hands were 
in a blaze. 

“ Oh !” She uttered one quick, terrified ex- 
clamation as she shook the burning mass from 


140 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


her fingers. It fell upon her dress and flamed 
up still more fiercely. 

Hephzibah dropped her apples, caught a 
heavy woolen shawl from a nail near her and 
threw it around the girl, drawing it tightly until 
she had smothered out the blaze. It was all over 
in a minute. Rose bewailing her lost lace and 
Hephzibah remarking with a long breath as she 
went back to her work, 

“ ’Twas a mercy there was nothing else lost.” 

“ There might have been but for you, Hephzi- 
bab. How quick your thoughts were acknowl- 
edged Rose, gratefully. “ Oh dear ! the front 
of this dress is all scorched, and half a dozen 
holes in it too !” 

“ Spoiled, is it ?” questioned Hephzibah. 
“ What a pity ! That stuff did fly so, though ! 
As I say, it’s a mercy ’twas no worse.” 

Which was really all there was to say. No- 
body was hurt, nothing very serious had hap- 
pened. It was only one of those almost casual- 
ties which so often, through a mistake, a misstep, 
some little carelessness, bring us face to face with 
horrible death for an instant and then pass and 
are forgotten. 

Rose planned a little about the repairing of 
her dress and lamented again to Louise over 
her ruined lace. 

“ It all comes of having to do it myself in- 
stead of sending it out to be cleaned. It is to 


IFf 


141 


be hoped that Dane will make the family fortune 
soon,” she laughed. 

But, once in her own room, to which she has- 
tened upon the plea of changing her dress, she 
looked with altered face upon the scorched fabric 
and the trifling burns upon her hands. To 
Rose, as to most of us, life had seemed a safe 
possession stretching securely on for long years 
to come — so far that its limit was scarcely con- 
sidered. Yet here, in her common daily path, 
at her very side, had been suddenly disclosed 
that dark, mysterious gate which, opening, 
would have ushered her — Whither? She 
tried to banish the thought. What had oc- 
curred was only a little accident, and it was 
past; there was nothing to be nervous about. 
But even while she strove to reassure herself 
she shuddered. It was awful to have the con- 
sciousness thrust upon her that this of which 
she never dared to think was so near that any 
sharp turn in the road might reveal it just at 
hand, any moment bring close its dread presence. 
If it had not been for Hephzibah’s swift action, 
there would have been a few hours of agony, 
perhaps, too intense for any clear thought even 
if reason lingered, and then a mutilated, rigid 
form, from which friends would have averted 
their eyes, would have lain in the pretty little 
room. 

That vision held a horrible fascination for 


142 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


Rose. Against her will her excited fancy insist- 
ed upon picturing all the details. People would 
have come and gone and talked in awed whispers 
about its being “ sudden ” and “ dreadful crape 
would have hung on the door, and in some dark- 
ened room the girls would have gathered, with 
pale faces talking of what must be done, and 
planning — how to procure the most elegant 
and becoming mourning attire in the most 
economical way ! 

Rose broke into a quick, hysterical laugh as 
that last thought naturally followed the others. 

“ Living or dying, we Wilbers must keep up 
appearances,” she said, bitterly. “And they 
would be planning that very thing — soberly and 
dolefully, of course, but they would plan it. 
Except Eunice, perhaps, and she would not 
dream that her differing from the rest had killed 
me for Rose knew, though no one else would 
ever have known, that the heedless movement 
which had wellnigh ended disastrously had been 
less an attempt to shake out the lace she held 
than an impatient desire to shake off a trouble- 
some suggestion that lay in Hephzibah’s ques- 
tion. “And I may as well answer it honestly,” 
she said, with a strange sort of self-defiance, 
“since it was so nearly my last chance to be 
honest with myself. Eunice is different; her 
life, her motives and aims, are not ours. Her 
religion is a living, earnest thing ; it means 


IFf 


143 


everything. I cannot help seeing it and know- 
ing it. It was easy enough to laugh at forms 
and decorous pretences and persuade myself 
that I was as well off without them, but fighting 
this — ” 

The bright head suddenly buried itself in the 
pillow so temptingly near, and excitement, alarm 
and a host of conflicting unanalyzed commotions 
found vent in a torrent of tears. 

Tears were an almost unknown indulgence 
with Rose, and she was proud of the fact ; so, 
when Louise tapped at the door a little later, 
there was no response, and when, after a mo- 
ment’s waiting, she looked in, she decided that 
the motionless figure upon the lounge was 
wrapped in quiet slumber. 

“ I do believe Rose has no more impressibility 
than a butterfly,” she thought as she softly closed 
the door again ; “ she is as comfortably asleep as 
if nothing had happened. Such a shock would 
have completely unnerved me — though, indeed, 
an accident so purely the result of carelessness 
would scarcely be likely to happen to anybody 
hut Rose.” 

When she met her sister at the tea-table that 
evening, Louise was still further confirmed in 
her opinion, though it was one so long and fully es- 
tablished as scarcely to need confirmation. Rose 
had bound up the wounded hand “ as became a 
scarred veteran,” she said, lightly, contriving to 


144 WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 

make the dainty bandage almost ornamental, and 
was appai’ently her accustomed sunny self. 

Tom excused himself earlier than usual that 
evening ; business hurried him back to the 
store. 

“And I’m afraid,” he said, with a regretful 
glance at his wife, “ that I can’t get away early 
enough for the prayer-meeting — early enough to 
come home for you and go in proper time, I 
mean. I might drop in later and come home 
with you if any of the girls feel like going with 
you.” 

Oddly enough, though no one seemed to notice 
its strangeness, attendance upon the prayer-meet- 
ing was nearly always mentioned in that way — 
“ going with Eunice ” — as though it were some- 
thing that belonged particularly to her. 

Hetty was questioning whether she should, 
ought or must offer to accompany Eunice, when 
Rose spoke : 

“ I’ll go with you, Eunice. You needn’t take 
the trouble to thank me ; I’ve a fancy I’d like to 
go.” 

Eunice’s heart gave a quick bound of surprise 
and pleasure. Could this he the rising of the 
“ little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand ” for 
which she was waiting and praying? 

Louise looked up in unfeigned astonishment. 
There really seemed no end to Rose’s queer 
freaks. She probably expected to find amuse- 


IFf 


145 


merit and matter for future rehearsals in what 
she should see and hear. Whatever were Rose’s 
motives, she did not explain them, though Eunice 
had half expected that she would as they walked 
to the church together. 

Eunice did so hope — the prayer was in her 
heart all the way — that the service would be 
something to touch this light young heart, and 
she was so bitterly disappointed that she could 
scarcely keep back her tears when she found the 
pastor absent — unexpectedly called from home, 
with no time to provide for the Wednesday- 
evening meeting — and Deacon Stone in his 
place. It was a place in which Deacon Stone 
often found himself on such occasions — not be- 
cause he wanted it or was particularly fitted for 
it, but because he was too conscientious positively 
to refuse it, and others, sure that he could be re- 
lied upon as a last resort, pleaded their want of 
preparation and slipped the more easily out of 
the responsibility. 

Deacon Stone was slow of speech and poor of 
eyesight. The adjustment of his glasses trou- 
bled him ; he fumbled nervously over the leaves 
of the great Bible, and did not read readily when 
the desired chapter was found. He could not 
have been brilliant or original in his remarks if 
he had tried, and he did not try. He was too 
humble and unconscious to expect much of him- 
self or to suppose that anybody expected any- 
10 


146 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

thing of him beyond the mere opening of the 
meeting in his “ poor way,” as he always ex- 
pressed it. Whatever it might mean to his 
hearers, the promise he had read — “ God is onr 
refuge and strength, a very present help in trou- 
ble ” — meant a great deal to him. He told how 
it had been verified to him when sickness and 
death were in his family — “ as maybe some of 
you have heard me tell before, brethren.” 

Eunice mentally counted up the number of 
times she had heard the worthy man tell it, and 
wondered, with a sinking heart, how his halting 
utterances and little slips in grammar would 
affect Rose, who was so quick to discover the 
grotesque. But Rose’s quiet face was inscrutable, 
and her eyes were intently fixed upon the 
speaker. 

“ I was so disappointed at not finding Dr. 
Lander here !” Eunice said, in a low tone, as, 
the hour ended, they slowly moved toward the 
door, where Tom was waiting for them. 

“Were you?” Rose answered as if she had 
scarcely heard the words. She looked back over 
her shoulder at the bent figure just leaving the 
desk, and added musingly, “ I remember that 
winter when his wife and two children died. I 
was but a child at the time, but I wondered how 
he could live under such troubles. Until now I 
never heard him tell how he felt.” 

The words and a certain abstraction in look 


IFf 


147 


and tone suddenly reminded Eunice of another 
Scripture passage which she had been in danger 
of forgetting; “For my thoughts are not your 
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith 
the Lord;” and the half-impatient regrets she 
had been cherishing all the evening were awed 
into silence. What if this star should gleam at 
last in the crown of poor blundering old Deacon 
Stone ? 

Rose was not easy to read in the days that 
followed, if any one were trying to read her. 
Interested in all the daily pursuits, sunny and 
untroubled as ever, was it possible that she could 
have had any serious thoughts ? A little gentler 
than usual, perhaps, more unselfishly kind and 
less ready with sarcastic and reckless speeches ; 
or was it merely that nothing had happened to 
call them forth? Who could tell? She an- 
nounced her intention of going, when the next 
prayer-meeting evening came around, though it 
was no longer necessary to provide company for 
Eunice. A change in the business at the store, 
occurring at that time of year, brought the fam- 
ily supper-hour a little earlier and made it pos- 
sible for Hephzibah to be free. Eunice, who 
could well understand how her old friend had 
missed the weekly gathering, and how that 
lecture-room would be the one home-like spot 
in the whole city for her, gladly arranged for 
her to go. 


148 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


To Louise, when she heard of this plan, the 
idea of mistress and maid going together was 
appalling. 

“ My dear Eunice, I appreciate your attach- 
ment to Hephzibah, but really life here is very 
different from that in the country, and you can- 
not take her with you everywhere,” she remon- 
strated. 

Eunice tried, out of regard for the real anx- 
iety and kindness betrayed in the tone, to ignore 
the touch of condescension that always irritated 
her : 

“ ‘ Everywhere ’ ? Of course not. I do not 
think she would enjoy going to one of our con- 
certs with me, or to a party, and I shoidd not 
think of asking her — unless, indeed, the host 
had desired her presence also. But it happens 
in this case, Louise, that her invitation is as hon- 
orable and as authentic as my own.” 

Nevertheless, knowing how Louise viewed the 
matter, Eunice could do no less than inform 
Rose, when she expressed her purpose of going, 
that Hephzibah was going also. 

“Well, unless the room is a great deal fuller 
than it was the last time, there will be room 
enough for both of us,” answered Rose, undis- 
turbed. “ Hephzibah doesn’t object to my com- 
pany, does she ?” 


CHAPTER IX. 


BANE’S FORTUNE. 

N otwithstanding Dane’s magnificent 

prospects, the family income did not in- 
crease very rapidly. The remittances at which 
he had so broadly hinted when he took his buoy- 
ant departure had not arrived, and Louise had 
been spending a gray autumn afternoon in one 
of her old shopping-excursions, running here 
and there to match tints because something new 
must be blended with something old to make up 
a desired costume which she could not afford to 
order outright from fresh material. After all 
her looking, she had not purchased quite what 
she wanted, because it proved too expensive. 
What she had purchased, and did not really 
want, was also too expensive, and had the dou- 
ble disadvantage of suiting neither her purse 
nor her taste. 

“ However, it will make a more stylish com- 
bination than almost any one else would have 
thought it possible to procure for the same mon- 
ey,” she consoled herself, as she slowly ascended 


150 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

the steps at her own door. “ But I shall he glad 
if the time ever comes when such things can be 
simply a matter of choice instead of a vexing 
question of what can barely be made to do.” She 
had a scarcely-defined feeling that if mei’it were 
properly rewarded in the allotments of this 
world she ought to be mistress of a large for- 
tune some day for her admirable management 
of present limited resources. 

The gas had not been lighted in the parlor 
when she entered, and the fire was burning low ; 
so that, coming from the outer twilight, the room 
looked drearily sombre. She had crossed it to 
stir the smouldering coals into a blaze before she 
discovered in the dim light a man’s figure 
stretched upon the sofa. A sharp but subdued 
voice answered her startled cry : 

“ Louise ? Hush !” 

“ Dane !” 

“ Yes, it’s I. What a blinding blaze you have 
made of that fire ! Drop the curtains over the 
windows now, or the place will show up and down 
the street like a lighthouse.” 

Louise was too much surprised at his presence 
to bestow any wonder upon the last injunction ; 
she only obeyed it mechanically: 

“ How you frightened me ! I had no idea of 
your being at home. Where are the girls — Eu- 
nice and Hetty ?” 

“ I haven’t seen any one. I only came in a 


DANE’S FORTUNE. 


151 


little while ago, and I was tired and lay down 
here, that is all.” 

“ But where did you come from so unexpect- 
edly ?” she persisted, still anxiously ; for in the 
firelight his face looked haggard and pale. “ You 
are not ill, Dane ? Is anything the matter ?” 

“ What should be the matter ?” He laughed 
a short, impatient laugh scarcely more reassur- 
ing than his words had been. “ I came from 
Chicago, of course. I’m going West on the 
evening mail, and only ran up home for an hour 
or so to see the folks and rest. I don’t see any- 
thing very surprising in that.” 

“ No, only your coming so unexpectedly.” 
Louise was relieved. “ Going West on the 
evening mail ? Then you will scarcely have 
time to wait for supper. I’ll have Hephzibah 
make a cup of coffee and bring up a lunch for 
you at once.” 

“ That’s a good idea ; I may need something, 
though I hadn’t thought of being hungry. You 
are always thoughtful, Louise. This is a pleas- 
ant home.” His eyes wandered lingeringly 
around the little room. “ It’s not much wonder 
a fellow should naturally turn back to it when — 
when he is tired.” 

Louise laughed, well pleased, though she only 
answered lightly that he deserved an “ extra 
nice supper for that bit of flattery,” and then 
hastened away to look after it. 


152 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


But when, a little later, it was temptingly 
spread, Dane did not eat much, though he drank 
feverishly. Rose had come in, and Eunice and 
Hetty, hearing of his arrival, were also down 
stairs. He was in no talkative mood, however, 
and did not answer their questions very fully, 
though he explained that he was tired, having 
slept but little the previous night. 

“And now you must ride all night ! You are 
going on business for the firm ?” asked Rose. 

“ On business — yes ; it’s connected with the 
firm.” 

“ Why didn’t you tell me so at first ? I was 
so startled ! I thought you must be ill, or some- 
thing,” said Louise, half vexed as she grew thor- 
oughly reassured. 

“ Very sick people do not travel about, usual- 
ly,” laughed Dane, “ and I didn’t know that you 
considered me an alarming spectacle.” He 
pushed back his chair from the table and 
glanced at his watch : “ There is an hour yet 
before I must start. I’d go to my room and lie 
down if I were sure of not missing the train.” 

“ Oh, I will call you in time,” promised Lou- 
ise, readily, yet with a little touch of disappoint- 
ment in her tone. It was so unlike social Dane 
to wish to spend his one hour at home away 
from them all, except that fatigue and loss of 
sleep explained it. She wondered, after he had 
left them — she had not thought to ask — whether 


DANE’S FORTUNE. 


153 


he had been traveling the previous night also, or 
what had prevented his sleeping. 

Hetty, going softly up stairs a little later, 
found that she need not have been so careful 
about disturbing his slumber, since he was not 
even in his own room, but standing by a window 
in the unlighted hall. 

“ Why, Dane ! I thought you were asleep.” 

He did not notice the exclamation, but ques- 
tioned abruptly: 

“ Isn’t the corner front room yours, Hetty ? 
I wish you would go and stand by the window a 
few minutes and see who is on the street — 
whether there is any one who seems noticing 
this house particularly.” There was suppressed 
excitement in his voice, and the hand he laid on 
hers trembled. 

Hetty looked up at him wonderingly, and then 
in the breath that swept her face she detected, or 
fancied she did, the fumes of liquor ; and a sud- 
den sickening fear possessed her that Dane was 
not quite himself. That suspicion, however, in- 
duced her to yield to his request without parley, 
and she went to her own room. She seated her- 
self by the window, but her thoughts were so 
busy with this new dread and all that it might 
involve that she only gazed into the street with 
eyes that took no note of anything until Dane’s 
voice at the door reminded her of her commis- 
sion : 


154 


WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 


“Well?” 

“ Wait a little,” she replied. 

The street was a quiet one, the night chilly 
and unpleasant, and but few people were passing 
— none but ordinary pedestrians, who did not 
heed one house more than another in their haste 
to reach their homes. She was about to say so, 
when a man passed rather more slowly on the 
opposite pavement and did look across — very 
naturally, too, since the light in those upper 
windows looked cheery enough to attract atten- 
tion on such a night. A little later an equally 
slow, measured step passed on their own side of 
the street, and the person might have glanced at 
the bright windows, though he was too directly 
beneath her for her to see. Whom did Dane 
expect? or was his request anything more than 
the fantastic conceit of an unsteady brain ? 

There was another man walking slowly by on 
the other side, or — Yes, it was the same who 
had passed before, and he was glancing uj) at the 
house again. He was going in the same direc- 
tion, too; so he must have returned on the 
nearer side. 

Hetty sheltered herself a little in the shadow 
of the curtain and watched more closely. Pres- 
ently the measured step once more passed under 
the window ; there was time for it to have reached 
the corner and have crossed the street, and then 
the figure appeared pacing down the opposite 


DANE’S FORTUNE. 


155 


pavement again. Assured of this, Hetty slipped 
away from her post of observation and reported 
to Dane : 

“ I think there is a man who has passed the 
house two or three times, and who acts as if he 
might be waiting for some one.” 

“What did he look like?” 

“ I cannot tell ; I could scarcely see him, ex- 
cept for an instant when he passed into the lamp- 
light. Rather a heavy man, dressed in dark 
clothes, with his hat pulled down low on his 
head. Were you expecting some one, Dane?” 

“ ‘ Expecting ’ ? No — yes. I thought he 
might come. Turn out the gas in your room, 
Hetty, and let me see for myself” 

“ ‘ Turn out the gas ’ ?” Hetty repeated, in 
bewilderment. 

“ So that any one outside cannot see who is at 
the window,” Dane explained. “If he is the 
one I am looking for, I don’t care about his see- 
ing me until I am ready to go out.” 

It seemed an odd way on both sides of keeping 
an appointment, but for some reason scarcely de- 
fined to herself Hetty felt an unusual reluctance 
to question Dane, and without further comment 
did as he desired. He followed her into the 
darkened room after a minute, and stood by her 
side with his face pressed closely against the win- 
dow. She could hear his heavy breathing, and 
she thought he trembled. 


156 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ Dane, you are ill ; you are shivering,” she 
said, in alarm. 

“ Hush ! No ; I’m well enough. I’ve been 
riding in the cold all the afternoon. Is that the 
fellow, over there ?” 

“ Yes, that is the man I saw. Is it the man 
you were expecting?” 

“ I suppose it must he,” Dane answered, 
slowly. 

“ Then, if he is only waiting for you, why not 
let me go down and ask him in until you are 
ready to go?” 

“ No ; you needn’t take the trouble. He will 
come to the door himself if he gets tired waiting 
outside.” Dane turned away from the window : 
“I only wanted to make sure he was there. 
Now I’ll go and lie down a little while.” 

There was short space left for that, Hetty 
thought; but Dane walked away and entered 
his own room. 

Hetty sat still by the window for a few min- 
utes, bewildered and uneasy. What did it all 
mean ? Could that man across the street be 
some disreputable acquaintance of Dane whom 
he did not wish his family to meet ? She had 
never suspected that he had any such, but neither 
had she ever suspected what his breath had told. 
And his whole manner was so strange ! But 
presently she shook off her tormenting conjec- 
tures with a little laugh : 


DANE’S FORTUNE. 


157 


“ How silly to sit here making myself miser- 
able in this way, when there are a dozen quite as 
reasonable and more comfortable ways of ac- 
counting for it all? Dane probably finds it 
necessary to have business relations with many 
men who are not counted among his friends and 
are not persons he cares to introduce to his fam- 
ily. He may have been vexed at this one’s com- 
ing so early, when he wanted an hour’s quiet. 
As for the rest, I know Dane is not in the habit 
of drinking. He may have taken something as 
a medicine after losing sleep last night and rid- 
ing all day in the cold. And this business for 
the firm is something that he seems anxious 
about. I wonder what he would think of me 
if he could imagine what fancies I have had 
during the last half hour? I am thoroughly 
ashamed of myself.” 

She relighted the gas, turned it low, closed her 
shutters and went down to the parlor, where the 
cheerful group around the centre-table seemed as 
far removed from morbid misgivings as possible. 
Louise had been displaying her afternoon’s pur- 
chases, and Rose’s appreciative commendations 
and suggestions as to how they could be turned 
to the most effective account had given Louise a 
pleasant sense of success and satisfied her with 
her afternoon’s work. Eunice and Hetty also 
admired, and the quartette had plunged into a 
discussion of the pretty new fashions and dainty 


158 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

novelties displayed in the various stores, when a 
loud report startled them all. 

“ What was that ? Something has fallen,” 
cried Louise. 

There was scarcely space for the words before 
the sound was repeated. 

“ A pistol-shot ! Could it have been in the 
street?” questioned Rose. 

But Hetty had turned with a cry of terror, 
and was flying up the stairs to Dane’s room. 
At the door she paused, faint and trembling, 
with her nerveless hand refusing to turn the 
knob. The others had followed her without 
knowing her destination, or even dreaming of 
the dreadful apprehension that had impelled 
her sudden flight. 

Louise touched her arm : 

“Don’t, Hetty,” she remonstrated, in a low 
tone. “ If the noise has not disturbed him, let 
him sleep. Perhaps — ” 

But the sentence was drowned in a shriek of 
horror as Hetty pointed to a slender crimson 
stream slowly forcing its way from under the 
door. For one moment they stood as if trans- 
flxed ; then it was Louise’s hand that put the 
almost fainting Hetty aside and opened the door 
— only partially and with difficulty, resisted by 
some object pressing against it from within. 
The sight revealed was too horrible ever to be 
forgotten — Dane stretched upon the floor in a 


DANE'S FORTUNE. 


159 


pool of blood, his handsome face ghastly and 
a revolver still clutched in his hand. 

The shot and the cries had been heard beyond 
the house ; there were feet on the stairs and hur- 
ried voices in the hall. Tidings were borne with 
the mysterious rapidity which at times makes it 
seem as if the very atmosphere must be charged 
with them, and men were pressing into the house, 
into the room, before the stricken group of sis- 
ters had recovered sufficient presence of mind or 
power of motion to summon any one. 

“ Run for a doctor !” 

“ Send for the coroner !” 

“Who shot him ? How did it happen ?” 

Hetty heard the confused voices as if under 
the spell of a frightful dream, without compre- 
hension or power to answer. She was dimly 
conscious, too, that among those who came and 
went was the figure of the man she had seen in 
the street, but it was only an isolated impression ; 
she linked with it no thought nor inference. 
Messengers and telephone did their speedy work. 
Tom was summoned, physicians came. Ready 
hands rendered swift and skillful assistance. In- 
quiries were made continually, and answered by 
one and another with the meagre information that 
alone could be given, until the words seemed to 
lose all meaning and to become merely mechan- 
ical. 

“ An accident ; I don’t know how it happened. 


160 IFOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

It is a terrible accident,” Louise repeated again 
and again, she did not know whether to herself 
or to others. 

No one answered ; there was scarcely need 
for answering, with the sure aim that had been 
taken and the pistol so tighly clenched in the 
fallen right hand. 

Slowly the room was cleared by the imperative 
order of the surgeons, who had removed the pros- 
trate form to a lounge and with the aid of a few 
assistants were proceeding in a grave but busi- 
ness-like way to make a careful examination of 
the wounds. 

“ He is not dead,” said Tom, coming out for 
a moment to his wife and sisters ; but he spoke 
slowly and look and tone quenched any hope the 
words might have held, for the feeble, glimmer- 
ing spark of vitality that remained could scarce- 
ly be called life. 

A keen-faced young man, notebook in hand, 
edged his way around to Hetty, as the young- 
est and most manageable of those nearly con- 
cerned, and succeeded in gaining a place at her 
side : 

“A very sad affair, miss. May I ask you if 
you know any cause for the suicide ?” That was 
the first time the deed had been called by its right 
name. 

Hetty started, shuddered and turned her heavy 
eyes upon the questioner, still too benumbed by 


DANE’S FORTUNE. 


161 


the blow that had fallen to resent even his intru- 
sive presence or address. 

“Was it any disappointment, do you think? 
Or business troubles ?” His pencil was all ready 
for an item for tbe morning paper, and he was 
eager for full particulars ; but just then Eunice 
saw him, and, comprehending his purpose, quiet- 
ly drew Hetty away. It was a relief to be free 
from the pitiless tongue, but the question she 
had not answered remained and repeated itself 
until it forced its meaning upon her sore heart 
and whirling brain. Suicide ! That was what 
it must have been, whatever Louise might say. 
And people did not take that desperate step 
without a cause : what reason could Dane have 
had for this dreadful deed? 

Rose asked the same question when at last, 
late in the night, the three girls cowered over 
the dying fire in the desolate parlor. 

The house had finally been cleared of the 
thoughtless, the curious, the officious and the 
unneeded. Even the physicians, having done 
all in their power, had taken their departure 
with the promise of calling again in the early 
morning, and a strange, unnatural quiet had 
fallen upon the place. In the upper room Tom 
and Eunice kept watch beside the motionless 
form that evinced no sign of consciousness, and 
scarcely any of life. 

“ No, I cannot say there is any hope,” Dr. 

11 


162 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Ansley, the family physician, had answered, 
frankly, when Tom, who had followed him to 
the liall door, detained him by a question. “ He 
is not dead : that is all. There is no hope that 
he will rally, and probably he will cease breath- 
ing in two or three hours at longest. It would 
be no kindness to withhold the truth : there is 
nothing more that can be done.” 

Only the three girls were in the parlor. It 
seemed ages instead of but a few hours since 
they had gathered there so happily. Louise’s 
purchases still lay spread out upon the table 
where they had been examining them. They had 
been interested in such things only a few hours 
ago ! Rose shuddered as she glanced at the 
shining fabric. How could they have stood 
there so unconscious of what awaited them ? 
Why had no voice warned them in time to 
save him ? 

“ If it had been any one but Dane ! Oh, why 
did he do it? Why did he do it?” she cried. 
— “ Hetty, what made you think of him in that 
first moment?” 

“ Because — ” Hetty slowly reviewed the 
vague, troubled impressions of the evening. 
There was not much to tell wlien she tried to 
put them into words, nothing that really threw 
any light on the subject. 

Louise caught at a sentence or two : 

“ Some one was waiting for him ? Dane said 


DANE’S FORTUNE. 


163 


he was to meet some one ? That proves that he 
had no thought of this when he went to his 
room — that it must have been, as I said, an ac- 
cident. He may have taken out the revolver to 
carry on his journey, and in some way discharged 
it.” 

“ That might have happened once, but twice T' 
Rose’s wistful eyes sought Hetty’s questioning! y, 
but neither of them spoke. 

The little bronze clock on the mantel — one of 
Dane’s extravagances — slowly ticked away the 
hours, but the summons momently watched for 
from that silent upper room did not come. One 
at a time they stole up stairs, to stay a little while 
and return again with the same report — that 
there was no change. 

The fire sank lower in the grate, but no one 
noticed or thought of replenishing it, until Heph- 
zibah looked in for a minute, discovered the need 
and silently brought in fuel. They had forgot- 
ten her very existence until she came in, but 
there was something soothing and reassuring in 
the homely, quiet face and the brown hands that 
so skillfully coaxed the fire into a comfortable 
blaze and arranged the disordered room — an un- 
obtrusive ministering sympathetic in its very 
silence. 

Rose followed her, when she left the room, 
down into the kitchen, where the fire in the 
range and the night-lamp on the shelf showed 


164 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

how she had been waiting and watchful, ready 
for any service that might be required. Rose’s 
head sank upon the table with a burst of tears, , 
the first she had shed that night : i 

“ Oh, Hephzibah, it is all so awful ! But his ; 
soul is not yet away. Pray for him, Hephzibah ; 
it may not be too late. Pray !” 

“I do.” The wrinkled brown face turned 
pityingly toward the fair one. “ I will. But, 
child, cannot you pray ? Hain’t you no trouble 
for your own soul ?” 

Rose lifted her head for an instant, and a sud- 
den light shone through the tears that were dim- 
ming her eyes : 

“ Not now ; never any more. I have given it 
out of my own keeping,” she answered, softly: 

“ ‘ I know whom I have believed, and I am per- 
suaded that he is able to keep that which I have 
committed to him against that day.’ ” 

Hephzibah’s murmured thanksgiving was 
choked in the sister’s sob : 

“ Poor Dane !” 

The dreary night wore itself out, and the gray 
morning followed — a morning unlike any other. 
With its first light Dr. Ansley’s ring was heard 
at the door, and Louise hastened to admit him. 
Hephzibah threw up the sash and opened the 
shutters to let in the day. As she did so a news- 
boy’s shrill voice was heard shouting up the 
street : 


DANE’S FORTUNE. 


165 


“ Here’s yer Morning Breeze ! All about the 
suicide !” 

Whatever they might wish or try to believe, 
that was the public verdict, proclaimed to all the 
world. 


CHAPTER X. 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 

T he day wore away as the night had done, 
and still Dane lived — barely lived. There 
had been no visible ehange, and Dr. Ansley did 
not alter his opinion : 

“ He has more vitality than I thought, and it 
makes the battle longer ; but it can be only a 
question of time.” 

Hetty sat by one of the front windows, her 
head leaning against the glass in the absorption 
of a grief that had forgotten all ordinary em- 
ployments. Her listless straightforward gaze 
took no notice of those who came and went on 
the street, until, as the doctor passed out to his 
carriage, a man stepped forward and stopped 
him for a moment. Then she started. The 
heavy figure, the slouched hat, even the step, 
she recognized as belonging to the man she had 
seen the night before — the man for whom Dane 
was watching. She could well guess what ques- 
tion he asked so earnestly, though the brief con- 
versation was unheard, and she knew what the 
answer must be. Then the doctor entered his 
carriage, and the stranger, with a final glance at 
166 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 


167 


the house, walked slowly away. There was no 
need for him or any one to wait longer for 
Dane’s coming. 

The morning paper, the tempting contents of 
which had been so loudly proclaimed upon the 
street, found its way to the family before the day 
was over. It was regularly left on the steps, in- 
deed, but Hephzibah, who had caught the cry 
that morning, brought it hastily in and deposit- 
ed it in an out-of-the-way place where she hoped 
it might remain unnoticed and unasked for. 

“ Not that its being out of sight alters any- 
thing,” she muttered as she pushed it a little far- 
ther behind a pile of magazines on the table, 
“ but there are some stories that look awful had 
when they’re spelled out in plain English and 
filled in with names you know.” 

This one surely did when Hetty’s eyes slowly 
scanned it. She too had heard the newsboy’s 
call, and had turned away from the window with 
a sickening pain at her heart and a wild desire 
to stop the shrill voice that seemed trying to 
publish the miserable truth to the ends of the 
earth — the truth they so longed to disbelieve. 
She did not want to see that paper, yet it drew 
her with a strange fascination. She hoped it 
would not be left at the house, yet she wandered 
restlessly down stairs a little later, searched for 
it, and when she had found it never paused until 
she had read every word of the pitiless statement. 


168 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

A part of it was news to her, as to the rest of 
the world ; for what the enterprising reporter 
had not been able to learn he had conveniently 
guessed at, and the result was a mixture of fact 
and fancy served in the approved sensational 
style. The glaring head-lines announced “ How 
a fast young man, unable to gratify his expensive 
tastes, rushes out of the world in disgust,” and 
a detailed account of the young man’s family, 
home and business connections followed, with a 
description, painfully minute, of the scene pre- 
sented in the “ suicide’s chamber.” Life was not 
entirely extinct when the victim was first discov- 
ered, but he had died during the night. “ Busi- 
ness troubles and losses are supposed to have 
been the cause of the rash act, as he is known to 
have speculated wildly, and to have taken some 
heavy risks lately, for one possessing no more 
means. A frantic haste to be rich has driven 
him to desperation.” 

If the wild speculations had been well known 
elsewhere, they had not been even suspected at 
home ; and Hetty dropped the paper in her lap 
with a sad wonder whether or not its conclusions 
were correct. Louise saw the paper there, and, 
taking it from the passive hands, slowly read it 
through. But Louise made no comment ; she 
only turned away with the white, set face she 
had worn ever since the morning. 

The day was a strange one — not alone in the 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 


169 


heavy overshadowing grief that was still too new 
and awful to be fully realized, but in the unwont- 
ed stillness and loneliness that had fallen upon 
the house. There was a dearth of callers. 

“ Though, of course, people would not come 
when one was lying so low and they knew they 
could render no assistance,” Hetty whispered to 
herself, with a sigh, when, as the slow hours 
dragged on, this omission dimly occurred to her. 
Other illnesses in the family had brought visits 
of sympathy and notes of condolence, but this — 
“No one could help us wait, and that is all there 
is to be done,” she added, feeling as if that hope- 
less waiting might already have pressed upon her 
heart for ages. 

But this was only the beginning. Another 
night passed like the first, except that Rose and 
Hetty kept watch alone while the others, worn 
out, sought their beds and slept the heavy sleep 
that so often mercifully follows a benumbing, 
hopeless sorrow. 

In Dane’s room a fire glowed in the open grate, 
a shaded lamp burned low on the table. Rose 
had drawn two easy-chairs beside the hearth for 
Hetty and herself. The room abounded in easy- 
chairs, comfortable foot-rests, ornate shelves for 
costly books and expensive toilet paraphernalia 
— a host of things that told of Dane’s luxurious 
tastes. The rich dressing-gown peeping from 
the closet door, the velvet slippers in the corner, 


170 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

recalled so vividly the blithe, handsome face, 
the ringing, cheerful voice, that it seemed almost 
impossible to believe in the identity of the mo- 
tionless wreck lying upon the bed. AVould it 
ever move again ? Had not the breath already 
ceased ? 

Rose answered the last question many times 
during that night by carrying the lamp close to 
the bedside and bending low to assure herself, 
for the flickering firelight played strange freaks 
with the pale face and closed eyes. Once, with 
lips close to his ear, she softly called to him : 

“ Dane ! Dane !” 

Hetty stirred uneasily in her chair. 

“ Don’t, Rose ! It sounds like calling after 
the dead,” she said, tremblingly. “ He will 
never hear any human voice again.” 

“ Oh, if I could reach him with but one mes- 
sage of hope !” cried Rose. “ Neither my voice 
nor my life has ever borne such a message for 
him. Dane ! Oh, Dane, hear me ! ‘ With God 

all things are possible;’ ‘The blood of Jesus 
Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ ” 

Softly, yet with thrilling distinctness, the 
words were breathed, and then Rose’s head 
sank upon the bed for a moment in a passion 
of prayer. All things are possible with God ! 
The blessed truth might reach, might save, even 
yet, the soul hovering in the border-land between 
two worlds. 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 


171 


Hetty looked at her sister curiously as she 
came back to her seat by the fire. There was 
surely something about her very unlike the Rose 
she had known through all the years. But then 
the whole world had changed since yesterday — 
was it only yesterday ? — so she asked no ques- 
tions, and felt only the vague wonder that alone 
seemed possible since this stunning blow had 
fallen. Everything was yet strange and unreal 
to her, as if seen in some horrible dream. 

When the third morning came, Tom went back 
to the store. In this hurried battle of life, what- 
ever breach befalls, whoever drops at our side, 
there comes always the sharp, stern command to 
close ranks and march on. The hours with their 
needs sweep forward and will not wait for us, 
and, though our hearts may linger weeping over 
our fair dead yesterday, our feet must press on 
with the imperative to-day. 

“ I do not know how I can stay away any 
longer,” said Tom, reluctantly preparing to de- 
part. “ I will try to come home early ; and if 
there is the slightest change, you can telephone 
for me at once.” 

There was no message to send, no perceptible 
change as the morning passed; but Tom came 
home unexpectedly early and with a face on 
which the shadow had visibly deepened during 
his absence. 

“ What is it ?” Eunice asked, in quick alarm. 


172 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Tom tried to smile as he met her anxious eyes, 
but the attempt was a futile one, and ended in a 
dismal failure. 

“Another coil in this dreadful matter — one 
that I might have suspected if I had not been 
too utterly overwhelmed to think of probabilities,” 
he answered, sadly. — “ Stay, Rose,” as his sister 
slowly passed the door ; “ let Hephzibah sit up 
stairs a little longer. You must all hear what I 
have learned to-day. I wish you need not.” 
He had borne so many cares alone, and had so 
shielded them from disagreeable things, from un- 
comfortable knowledge, through all the years, 
that he almost felt — good, faithful Tom ! — that 
he had failed in duty when he could not save 
them this. 

“ It is about Dane, I suppose ?” questioned 
Louise. There was a hardness underlying the 
weary hopelessness of the tone that made Rose 
look up at her wistfully. 

“ Yes, it is about Dane — a letter from the firm 
that employed him.” The words came slowly. 
“The papers were right about his speculating, 
and he has risked money not his own — I do not 
know what amount — taken from Bruce & Wells, 
so they say.” 

“A thief!” ejaculated Louise, a quick catch in 
her breath. 

A dark flush swept over Tom’s forehead and 
the patient mouth quivered. It was bitter to 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 


173 


have the name he had worked so hard to hold 
, stainless linked with a word like this. 

“ It is the name the world will give him, and 
justly,” he admitted ; “ the wrong is no less 
wrong because it is our Dane who has done it. 
I do not doubt that he meant to repay the mon- 
ey, and that finding himself unable to do so 
made him take this last step. Here is the let- 
ter.” 

I It was brief enough, and pitiless in its con- 
I ciseness, the writers being evidently more moved 
; to indignation by their own loss, which they 
keenly felt, than by sympathy with the family 
whom they did not know. They had learned 
' that Dane still lived, and they requested his 
brother to come on at once and see what arrange- 
ments could be made for settling the affair. 
“ Quietly, thereby avoiding the publicity and 
disgrace that otherwise will be inevitable,” was 
the concluding sentence, under which lurked a 
threat. 

“ It is hard to leave home now.” 

“ But you must go,” said Eunice, decidedly, 
as her husband paused and looked at her. 

“ I have telegraphed that I will come,” he 
said. “ I do not know what can be done, but I 
must see.” 

It was hard ; Eunice felt it so when the girls 
had gone up stairs again and she had leisure to 
think it all over. She gave directions for the 


174 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

early supper that would enable her husband to 
take the evening train, and busied herself with 
packing the few needed articles in his portman- 
teau, glancing now and then at the tired, care- 
lined face that was so abstractedly watching the 
gray sunset. He looked old for his years. How 
little he had spared himself while he had tried 
to make smooth paths for others — for this young 
brother who had never denied himself anything 
in return, but selfishly and madly followed his 
own course without a care that he was risking 
home and happiness other than his own ! And 
now, when he had wi’ought ruin, and disgrace 
had overtaken him, he had taken a coward’s way 
of slipping out of it all and leaving others to 
right the wrong and bear as best they might the 
burden of shame and grief. Life had not been 
easy for Tom. Eunice resented the incessant 
demands upon him. But when, standing beside 
his chair, she said something of this — not all , 
she would not have wounded him with all those 
bitter thoughts — he looked at her with a sigh 
and answered thoughtfully, 

“ It was all I could do. I haven’t been such 
a Christian as I ought to have been, Eunice : I 
can see that plainly enough now ; but I have 
had this feeling that the younger ones could not 
remember enough to understand much about a 
father’s love, and I wanted to take such care of 
them that the name that is given to Clirist — ‘our 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 


175 


Elder Brother ’ — should mean a great deal to 
them.” 

And this from Tom, who had not been supposed 
to have any high ideals ! Eunice’s eyes filled 
with penitent tears at the sudden recalling of 
the one perfect Example so far above all human 
love, and her heart, which in its pity for Tom 
had been hardening toward the wrong-doer up 
stairs, grew tender again. She remembered that 
in his last bright visit home Dane’s chief rejoi- 
cing had been that he should so soon be able to 
do wonderful things for “ dear old Tom.” 

An unreasoning dread that some fresh calami- 
ty might come with delay, an eager desire at 
once to do all that was possible to cancel the 
wrong and efface the stain, had urged Tom’s 
speedy departure ; but when he had really gone, 
an added gloom and pain seemed shut into the 
house with the closing doors. 

“ How seldom he has been away ! though I 
never thought of it before,” said Rose as she 
looked after locks and window-fastenings for the 
night. 

There had been several offers of help and of 
company from acquaintances, though not the free 
inquiries and cordial tendering of services that 
any ordinary illness would have brought, since, 
however kindly disposed, people naturally feared 
that their presence might be unwelcome and for- 
bore to press offers of aid that might be misun- 


176 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


derstood or undesired. But every proposal of 
the sort that had been made Louise declined so 
peremptorily that the others would scarcely have 
opposed her even had assistance been needed, 
as it was not, “ with five women in the house,” 
as Hephzibah said. 

Hephzibah was a host in herself in those days, 
ready, unobtrusive, sympathetic, efficient. Even 
Louise, who had considered her interest in the 
family so preposterous, might have acknowledged 
its benefit now had she not been too much ab- 
sorbed to notice it. That, indeed, was one of the 
comforts of Hephzibah’s quiet doing — that it 
attracted so little attention to the doer. She 
replenished the fire in Dane’s room this evening, 
brought in the shaded lamp and helped Eunice 
to arrange everything comfortably for the night. 
Her presence and the sick-room together re- 
minded Eunice of other scenes. 

“ My good Hephzibah, how many weary times 
we have been through together ! I am glad you 
are with me now,” she said, with a faint smile. 

“ Well,” said Hephzibah, pausing a minute 
and leaning back against the door, “ I s’pose it 
sounds sort of self-conceited to be comparing 
myself to Queen Esther, or anybody like her, 
but I declare I’ve been asking myself all day 
the question her old uncle asked her : ‘ Wlio 
knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom 
for such a time as this ?’ ” 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 177 

What the suggestion had evidently held for 
Hephzibah it brought to the young mistress also. 
She had been thinking it hard that she, who had 
known so much of sorrow, anxiety and death in 
the past, should meet it so early here in her new 
life. It was all so different from what she had 
hoped. But who knew whether she too had 
come to the kingdom for such a time as this ? 
and weak self-pity died in a sacred ambition 
loyally to keep that which had been committed 
to her trust, while to her, as to the Church of 
old, the Master’s voice seemed to say, “ I have 
set before thee an open door. Hold that fast 
which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” 
She longed to impart to Louise, with whom she 
was to share the watch that night, something of 
the courage and strength that were stealing into 
her own heart with the assurance that this dread- 
ful event was not, after all, a happening — not be- 
yond the pale of those “ all things ” that “ shall 
work together for good to them that love God.” 

But Louise’s pale face, with its strange tense 
lines, held Eunice aloof and chilled the words she 
tried to speak. Louise scarcely spoke at all. 
She seemed to have set a seal of silence upon 
her feelings from the first, and had exchanged 
no confidences of sorrow or fear with any one. 
She obeyed implicitly the physician’s directions, 
but the skill of the hands that changed bandages 
and moistened the dry lips appeared more like 
12 


178 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


automatic perfection than like the prompting of 
tenderness. Eunice watched her, but only with 
the uncomprehending eyes that we so often bend 
upon one another in this strange world of ours, 
which holds, perhaps, no greater mystery than 
that we can live side by side, share common joys 
and sorrows, and yet do not, cannot, know one 
another. 

As the hours passed, however, Eunice’s atten- 
tion became wholly absorbed in her charge. 
There was a change in the face upon the pillow, 
a heavier respiration and an occasional movement 
of the limbs. 

“ He moves more than he has done before, and 
I think his face has less of that deathlike pallor. 
Or is it only the glow of the firelight?” she 
said, softly. 

Lonise came to the bedside, and stood there 
for a minnte in silent scrntiny. 

“ No ; there is a change,” she answered. 

It grew more marked as the night wore away, 
and presently the half-closed lids were lifted. 

“ Dane, do you know us ?” Eunice questioned, 
quickly, trying to steady the voice that trembled 
with excitement. 

Dane’s eyes tnrned toward her for an instant, 
as if the sound had attracted him, then wandered 
vacantly around the room and closed again ; 
there was no reply. 

“ But he heard ; I think he partly understood,” 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 


179 


Eunice said, in a low, eager tone, when they had 
returned to their seats by the fire. “ Oh, Louise, 
if he might live!” 

But Louise, preoccupied with her own doleful 
thoughts, was gazing fixedly into the bed of glow- 
ing coals, and made no reply. 

The quiet of the room was broken now by an 
occasional low moan, and the sufferer’s restless 
movements increased. As morning dawned his 
eyes — wild, bloodshot eyes that seemed to have 
lost all remembrance of the world they looked 
upon — opened once more, and to Eunice’s re- 
peated inquiry whether he recognized her there 
was at last — or they so interpreted it — an inar- 
ticulate assent. The doctor’s early visit was im- 
patiently awaited. 

But that gentleman, when he came, appeared 
neither so much surprised at the change nor so 
sanguine concerning the result as Eunice had 
anticipated. 

“ There were indications last evening that the 
case might develop in this way,” he said as he 
ordered new treatment. “I knew, indeed, that 
it must be so if he lived until this time.” 

“And you think that he will live?” asked 
Eunice. 

The powder-papers were folded very deliber- 
ately before the doctor looked up and shook his 
head : 

“ I cannot say that, Mrs. Wilber.” 


180 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ But surely he is better — stronger,” urged 
Rose. “ And we thought him conscious, or very 
nearly so, for a few minutes.” 

The learned gray head again made its slow 
motion of dissent : 

“ Possibly ; a passing gleam, but it was nothing 
more. He has rallied from the primary coma, 
which is more than I at first expected, but the 
case has only assumed a different and more lin- 
gering form by running into this second stage, 
which will be fever and delirium. In injuries to 
the brain the prognosis must always be doubtful, 
and in a complicated case like this, with that 
other ball in his side — However,” suddenly 
awakening to the fact that he was addressing, 
not a medical college, but an anxious sister, 
“ there is a chance for him — a possibility — and 
we will work upon that.” 

A very shadowy possibility it grew to be as the 
fever increased with the hours, and the tongue, si- 
lent so long, was loosened only in the mutterings 
of delirium. The office of the nurses was no sine- 
cure now, and they relieved one another fre- 
quently. 

“ Go out into the open air,” pleaded Eunice, 
who began to feel the ill-effects of the confine- 
ment herself, and to read it in the pale faces of 
the others. “ Go out for a walk.” 

“ To meet and be questioned by curious ac- 
quaintances and avoided by more considerate 


WHAT OTHERS KNEW. 


181 


ones? To be looked after, pointed out and 
talked about by everybody? No!” answered 
Louise, with a bitterness that it was useless to 
combat. 


CHAPTER XI. 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 

T WO days — days that seemed like weeks, so 
heavily were they freighted with care and 
suspense — brought Tom home again. His face, 
worn and weary, did not promise good tidings. 

“ It was worse than I feared or imagined,” he 
said, sadly. “ They sent for me because they 
thought Dane still had some share in the prop- 
erty here, something invested in the store or 
under my control ; but he had taken it all more 
than a year ago.” 

A little start of surprise betrayed that two or 
three of his auditors had been ignorant of this, 
but Tom did not notice it : 

“ He seems to have been perfectly infatuated 
with the excitement of speculation and the hope 
of winning a fortune. He has won quite largely, 
too, at times, and then lost more heavily still. 
All his own money has gone in that way, and in 
his expensive style of living when he had been 
successful. He has also used funds in his pos- 
session belonging to Bruce & Wells — must have 
done so repeatedly, they say, though I do not 
182 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


183 


know how they discovered it, nor how they have 
succeeded in tracing all his movements so mi- 
nutely. Finally, a series of losses and an utter 
inability to replace what he had taken drove him 
to desperation, I suppose, but his attempted flight 
was too late. He was already suspected, and fol- 
lowed when he came home, and an officer with a 
warrant for his arrest was watching the house 
that night. He would have been apprehended 
if he had not taken the step he did.” 

“ It is well he had so much grace. If only he 
had aimed more surely !” murmured Louise, 
scarcely above her breath. 

Only Hetty heard, and turned a shocked, 
startled glance toward her. 

“ How much is it ? His — The amount due 
them, I mean.” Eunice hesitated a little over 
the wording of the question. 

“ More than I can now see any way to repay, 
and yet I have promised to pay it,” answered 
Tom, the anxious lines deepening in his fore- 
head as the problem rose before him again with 
all its difficulties. “ They are bitter and indig- 
nant — I suppose it is only natural — and threaten 
the utmost penalty of the law, if Dane lives, un- 
less this demand is fully satisfled. It was a need- 
less threat, since, whether he lives or dies, I am 
more anxious that such a claim should be met 
than they can possibly be. I assumed the re- 
sponsibility, Eunice. It will make it hard for 


184 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


you, as for all of us, but I could not do other- 
wise.” He included the others in his half-apol- 
ogetic words, but his eyes sought his wife’s face 
questioningly. If only he could bear losses, 
retrenchment and privations alone! But they 
must needs fall upon this other life that he had 
linked with his. Was it just to darken and 
straiten her life for this? 

“ No, you could not do otherwise,” she an- 
swered, promptly. “There is the money that 
is coming to me next month : I wish it were 
enough.” 

Alas ! it was not ; for, though the amount of 
Dane’s embezzlement would have appeared but 
an insignificant item to newspapers accustomed to 
chronicling the thousands of defaulting cashiers 
and presidents, it was no trifle here. Eunice 
had hoped that her share in that little country 
homestead, whose slow sale and tardy division 
of profits had been effected at last, would aid 
ber husband’s business and enable him to make 
some desired changes, but this new demand set 
aside all other plans. 

“Your little patrimony to be swallowed in 
such a cause !” groaned Tom, in sudden protest. 
“ For my brother I Eunice, no !” 

“ Have we any separate interests ?” she urged, 
in a quick, hurt tone. “ Is it not my name and 
my family also, Tom ? It is to save our brother 
Dane.” 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


185 


For a moment Louise’s eyes lost their hard- 
ness and grew moist: 

“ Eunice Wilber, that is a noble thing for you 
to say, after all — ” She faltered and turned 
away with the sentence unfinished. “After all 
the feeling, strong though unexpressed, that 
Tom’s marriage had been in some sort a mesal- 
liance,” was her thought. Perhaps, however, 
Eunice had never suspected that feeling, and, in 
any case, it was better not put into words. But 
that despised little wool-store looked such a safe 
and honorable bit of family history now! 

Tom urged no further objections. The lines 
on his brow relaxed a little, and his rugged face 
grew almost beautiful for a moment as his eyes 
met and answered those of his wife: 

“Poor Dane! If you had only come to us 
earlier, Eunice — ” He too left his sentence un- 
finished, but Hetty completed it for herself as 
she slowly ascended the stairs to take her watch 
in the sick-room. Would it have been different 
with Dane — with them all — if Eunice, or, rath- 
er, the leavening principles of her life, had come 
to them earlier? 

The distant call of church-bells came faint 
through the closed windows, and Hetty, remem- 
bering that it was Wednesday evening, was sud- 
denly reminded that her wish had been granted : 
something had happened that settled for her the 
question of the amateur theatrical club. Nobody 


186 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

expected her to join it now; possibly, nobody 
even wanted her. She leaned her head wearily 
on her hand, and her eyes filled with tears as 
the memory of that perturbed day came back 
clearly. How she had longed to shift the re- 
sponsibility of deciding ! She was not brave 
enough to do or to leave undone for the sake of 
right alone lest she should be pointed at as puri- 
tanical or peculiar ; she had so wanted to stand 
well with the world that she had loved “ the 
praise of men more than the praise of God.” 
They had all done that: it had been the root 
even of Dane’s madness ; and this was what it 
had brought. The old sign had seemed to croak 
such a dreary warning that day of a coming 
fiery test. She had not dreamed that it was so 
near. 

“And that which has held the chief place in 
our hearts and our lives all the years has been 
swept away like the flimsy rubbish it was,” she 
mourned. “ Even while I was building it I felt 
that it was sham, and not real, and, now there is 
nothing left, I have never been a Christian ; I 
could not have been, for there is nothing to com- 
fort me now.” 

Hetty wondered about the others, and shud- 
dered as she recalled the words she had so lately 
overheard : 

“ She scarcely knew what she was saying, poor 
Louise ! But she is no better off than I. The 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


187 


wood has been swept away like the stubble. 
There is Eunice, but Dane is not really her own 
brother ; however kind she may be, she cannot 
feel the same. And Rose — ” 

Hetty’s face grew still more thoughtful. She 
had thought Rose the veriest butterfly, whose 
only life was in the sunshine, and here, in this 
storm, she was standing steady and still. Through 
the tears in her brown eyes a new light was shin- 
ing. The old gay laugh was hushed, indeed, in 
these sorrowful days, but she could still smile. 
There was a quietness, a confldence, about her 
at which Hetty marveled. It seemed as if Rose 
were leaning upon some hidden strength. Had 
she found something which she, Hetty, had 
missed ? 

The door opened and closed noiselessly ; some 
one came behind her and laid a light hand upon 
her shoulder, and Rose’s voice said softly, 

“ Hetty, little girl, you are so tired ! Lie 
down for a while and rest ; I can do all there 
is to do.” 

“ No, not tired, only — Oh, Rose, it is all so 
miserable !” She caught her breath to prevent 
the words from ending in a sob. 

Rose silently put her arm around her sister 
for a moment. 

“ Still, God can bring good even out of this. 
I don’t see how, but I know he can in some 
way,” she said, earnestly, at last, as if for her 


188 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

own reassuring as well as for lier sister’s com- 
forting. 

Hetty studied her face and endeavored to solve 
the question that was perplexing her. 

“ Rose, you are trying to be a Christian ?” she 
said, abruptly. 

The form of the query puzzled Rose in her 
turn : 

“ Yes — Why — I hadn’t thought much 
about the trying to be, for I hope I am one. 
When we are trusting Christ and have given 
ourselves to him, we are Christians, aren’t we ?” 

“ I suppose so.” Hetty’s answer came slowly. 
“ But, after all. Rose, it is hard. I have tried. 
You don’t know yet; but when being a Christian 
means going one way, and everybody expects 
you to go another, you can’t do both, and it is 
very hard.” 

“ But there is this comfort about it — that we 
needn’t even try to do both. We know exactly 
whose voice we are to follow ; that is the one 
thing that has been settled once and for always,” 
said Rose. 

Dane’s moans and incoherent mutterings broke 
the conversation, and Rose went to his side. 
Hetty looked after her for a minute, and then 
whispered to herself, 

“ I do believe she will be like Eunice, after all. 
Rose ! Rose !” 

“ What is it ?” asked Rose, catching but a sin- 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


189 


gle word. “ It is almost time for the beef-tea, 
Hetty; will you go down stairs and get it?” 

In those days Hephzibah’s kitchen seemed al- 
ways ready to honor all demands upon it. Its 
mistress at once divined Hetty’s errand, and, 
glancing toward the range, brought cup and 
spoon from the closet. The girl’s eyes followed 
her movements for a moment ; then she leaned 
back against the wall and waited for her to com- 
plete her arrangements. 

“ Hephzibah,” she began, plunging without 
prelude into the subject that held her thoughts, 
“ do you know that Rose is a Christian ?” 

“ Yes, I know it,” assented Hephzibah, quietly. 
“It is just the same now as they said of Jesus 
long ago : ‘ He entered into a house and would 
have no man know it, but he could not be hid.’ ” 

“ Well,” demanded Hetty, “ what is the dif- 
ference between her and me? We are not 
alike.” 

“Well” — Hephzibah set down her cup and 
faced the girl gravely and honestly — “ I think 
you’ve been trying, child. See here ! When I 
was a girl, I had a bad turn of neuralgia. The 
miserable thing seemed all through me — now a 
pain here, and now a pain there — and finally we 
sent word to the doctor. He sent back a bottle 
of medicine, and it was marked ‘ Tablespoonful 
three times a day.’ Now, if there was anything 
I hated to do, it was to take medicine, and I per- 


190 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


suaded myself that, as the pain was in my face 
and arms and shoulders, there’s where the medi- 
cine ought to go ; so I rubbed it on three times 
a day and oftener, and if I felt a little more com- 
fortable one hour I felt a little worse the next. 
I didn’t get a mite better. At last we sent for 
the doctor ; and when he heard what I’d done, 
he looked at me and said, ‘ That’s a good medi- 
cine ; but if you should rub it on outside from 
now till doomsday, it wouldn’t cure you. It’s 
got to get inside and work its way out through 
the whole system.’ It’s the same way with the 
cure for siii : it’s got to begin its work inside. 
Don’t you think that’s the difference, maybe ? 
You see, it ain’t the rubbing down of this fault 
or the polishing up of that virtue that’s wanted : 
it’s a ‘ new creature in Christ Jesus.’ ” 

Hetty answered not a word, but took up her 
cup and silently turned away. Halfway up the 
stairs she paused, and set the cup down upon the 
step beside her. It was an odd place to stop and 
pray, but she was too much in earnest to think 
of that. The prayer was a short one, too, but it 
changed Hetty Wilber’s life from that day on- 
ward : 

“ Lord, thou wast right : I cannot serve two 
masters. Now I choose thee, wholly, only and 
for ever. Free me from all others, even from 
myself.” 

“ You were not gone long. Did Hephzibah 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


191 


have it all ready ?” was Rose’s comment as she 
took the tea. 

She busied herself about the bedside for a few 
minutes, changing the cooling applications on 
the hot head, administering nourishment, arrang- 
ing pillows. The touch that so successfully dis- 
posed ribbons and laces seemed to avail here also, 
and every quiet movement counted. Then, when 
the restless meanings had subsided, she came 
back to her seat by the fire and took up the con- 
versation where it had broken off. She thought 
she did, for how could she know what had come 
between — that those few interesting minutes 
crowded with little homely duties had settled an 
eternity ? 

“ The feeling that everything is in His hands, 
that we have only to follow, rests me so,” she 
said. “And there is nothing too small to take 
to him — no trifling worry, no little tangle. I 
am only just beginning to learn how full and 
rich it all is, this ‘ heritage of those that fear his 
name.’ It makes me almost wonder that Run- 
yan could have written of the narrowness of the 
wicket-gate.” 

“Not Runyan alone, remember,” interposed 
Hetty, quickly. “ You did not find it so, because 
— at least, I suppose it was because — ^you simply 
dropped everything and entered. Rut if you 
had wanted to cling to every treasure and pleas- 
ure you fancied by the way, and had tried to 


192 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

take them all through with you, you would have 
known.” 

The little tremble in Hetty’s voice told more 
than her words of her own experience, and Rose 
understood and slipped her hand into her sister’s 
with a strong, close clasp. 

It was an iinquiet night. Dane moaned and 
talked incessantly, sometimes of “ puts ” and 
“ calls ” and “ margins ” — terms which would 
scarcely have been intelligible to the two lis- 
teners even had they been uttered in coherent 
sentences ; sometimes he seemed hurrying to 
catch railroad trains ; sometimes he was fretting 
over accounts that would not balance or pay- 
ments that must be made, though there was 
no money to meet them. No changing fancy 
brought rest ; through all he was troubled, anx- 
ious, harassed. Tom came and stood beside him 
for a little while, and far better than the others 
he could understand how full of excitement and 
torture must have been the weeks that had led to 
this. 

“ I suppose,” said Hetty, thoughtfully, “ that 
others are succeeding all the time in doing just 
what Dane tried to do. I do not mean that they 
are using other people’s money, but they are 
risking their own, speculating, prospering and 
growing rich just where failure and ruin came 
to him.” 

“Yes, some of them,” answered Tom, with 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


193 


his eyes fixed on the haggard young face on the 
pillow. 

“ PerhajDS God loved Dane too well to let him 
succeed,” said Rose, simply. She was very 
childlike in her trust, very straightforward in 
the expression of it. In the old days, when she 
had so carelessly followed her own pleasure, she 
had persisted in “ calling things by their right 
names,” as she teasingly told Louise, “ without 
christening follies as virtues ” because they were 
her own ; and the same innate honesty still enno- 
bled and characterized her. She had naturally 
spoken her thought ; it did not occur to her to 
repress it or that Tom might think it strange. 
Yet he turned upon her a swift, questioning 
look and hid a momentary quiver of his lip by 
the nervous stroking of his moustache. He had 
been advised that this was an “ afflictive dispensa- 
tion,” a “mysterious and painful providence,” 
but calling it the Father’s “ No ” had a tender- 
er sound. 

“ If it had not been for that last mad act !” he 
said, with a sigh. 

“ God did not let him succeed there, either,” 
answered Rose, softly ; and with something of 
the comfort of that thought in his heart Tom 
went away to devise ways and means for the new 
burden of debt that had fallen so suddenly upon 
him. 

Louise, a little later, joined him and Eunice 

13 


194 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

in that council. She had gone out without tell- 
ing any one where or for what purpose she was 
going ; but when she returned, she laid a little 
roll of bills on the table beside her brother : 

“ There are one hundred dollars to begin with 
— to end with also, I fear, so far as I am con- 
cerned ; for I do not know of anything more 
that I can do. I carried Aunt Patty’s pitcher to 
Mr. Cowan this evening.” 

The quaint, ugly old silver pitcher, the prop- 
erty of a distant relative, had dropped down 
along the line for several generations, until it 
became Louise’s possession and pride. So old 
and so ugly was it as to have greatly excited the 
covetous admiration of a collector of antiques, 
who had more than once tried to purchase it. 
Practical Tom had little appreciation of purely 
aesthetic values, and when he first heard of the 
matter had been about equally surprised at Mr. 
Cowan’s offer and his sister’s non-acceptance of 
it. But, having learned Louise’s feeling then, 
he could ixnderstand her sacrifice now, and he 
met it regretfully, half protestingly : 

“ You prized that so, Louise ! I am sorry to 
have it go. And you need not have been quite 
so hasty about it ; perhaps if you had waited a 
little — I do not know — ” 

“ It had been so long in the family, that was 
all. And I do not think I shall care to call 
attention to the family name or the family fame 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


195 


hereafter,” Louise interrupted, with bitter de- 
cisiveness. “ Consider it the beginning, as I said. 
And now what else can be done, Tom ?” 

Louise talked over plans and expedients very 
calmly — too calmly, Lunice thought, stealing an 
occasional glance at her face; for this was not 
the graceful composure that had always charac- 
terized Louise, but a certain stony resoluteness 
very unlike it. 

“ It will be hard,” said Tom, leaning wearily 
back in his chair when he had completed his 
statement. 

“ Hard or easy, it must be done, since it is the 
only way to hush up the disgraceful story,” re- 
plied Louise. 

That motive had not appealed to Tom as the 
chief one in his action, and he too scanned his 
sister’s face as if he did not quite understand its 
expression. But the members of the family had 
never been so intimately acquainted with one 
another as to render such a failure wonderful, 
and he did not comment upon it nor make any 
remark upon her words. 

As Louise passed up the stairs, Hetty, in the 
sick-room, caught the sound of the step for which 
she had been listening, and softly called Louise. 
A nervous, inexperienced nurse was Hetty, and 
in these long days of watching she trembled at 
every change: 

“ Come in, Louise, and see if you think the 


19G WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. ! 

fever is any liiglier to-night. He surely is more i 
restless.” . 

Louise lightly touched the hot forehead and j 
listened to the incoherent ravings, but oftei’ed no | 
opinion. 

“ It seemed a relief at first, after that dreadful 
lethargy, to have him move or speak,” pursued 
Hetty, in the low monotone that grows so famil- 
iar in the chamber of sickness, “ but I do not 
know that this is really any better. Louise, do 
you think he can live?” 

“ I do not know ; I do not expect it nor desire 
it.” Louise’s answer came slowly, but it was so 
explicit that for the second time it drew her 
young sister’s startled, almost horrified glance. 
As Louise met it she added, with a sudden pas- 
sionate intensity, “ You need not look at me in 
that way, Hetty ! It is the bitter truth, however 
it might sound under ordinary circumstances, 
that his death will be far better for all of us than 
his life. What has he to live for now ? What 
will be said of him ? What place can he hold ? 
He has disgraced himself and all of us, and it is 
a disgrace that will last as long as he is alive to } 
be pointed at. If he dies, it may be forgotten in ■ 
time ; and that is the only way to end it all. ■ 
There are cases in which life is far worse than 
death ; I have no doubt he realized that clearly 
enough when he tried to put himself out of the 
way. That showed his own wish in the matter. 


WHAT THE FIRE REVEALED. 


197 


and I cannot help feeling that it would have been 
better for us if he had succeeded.” 

“ For us, but what of him f” demanded 
Hetty, with wide-open eyes. “ To go out into 
eternity so ! Louise Wilber, don’t you believe 
in the life everlasting?” 

Week after week, month after month, through 
all the years, Louise had unhesitatingly and de- 
corously repeated the Church’s creed and never 
doubted her own full acceptance of it ; but here, 
at last, to this one article of faith so suddenly 
propounded she had no response ready. She 
looked at Hetty, looked at Dane, then turned 
and walked away without a word. 


CHAPTER XII. 


“CALLED.” 


“ NLY three weeks to Christmas !” It was 



C' Rose who made the announcement — made 
it solely for her own enlightenment, apparently, 
since she was the solitary occupant of the cozy 
room from which the breakfast-things had just 
been removed, and which she was putting in its 
accustomed morning order. She paused, feather- 
duster in hand, beside the pretty little calendar, 
and noted the date once more, to be sure she had 
made no mistake. “ Only three. I surely must 
do it at once. If I am to try at all, this will be 
my best chance.” 

The face that studied the glowing coals was 
too sober a one — though it could not have been 
called either sad or despondent — to be merely 
planning Christmas gifts or festivities. If she 
had remembered these at all, they would have 
appeared to Rose that day like things of a very 
far-away past, so long a stretch of history seemed 
to have fallen in between this year and last. But 
she was thinking of something quite different. 
It came to her oddly enough in her morning 


198 


‘called: 


199 


reading. Or it would have seemed odd to many 
people : to Rose it was growing familiar and 
natural that many things should come in that 
way: 

“ ‘ Called of God to be an apostle ‘Called of 
God to be a teacher.’ Paul was so sure that all 
his work was that to which God called him ! 
Now, I wonder — ” Rose leaned her cheek on 
her hand, and her eyes strayed from the printed 
page to the carpet while she meditated. “ Called 
of God to watch in a sick-room, change pillows 
and give medicine ? I suppose so, just now ; but 
what beyond that ? He always calls us to some- 
thing useful for ourselves and others, and he 
never calls us to that for which we have no fit- 
ness. What is mine ? Called of God to blend 
colors, arrange trimmings and loop ribbons? 
That has a queer sound, but then — ” 

Rose had “ found the end of a thread,” as she 
w^as wont to say, and she held on to it, after her 
fashion, slowly disentangling and straightening it 
day after day until it lay clear before her. Now 
she had a purpose. Why should she not put 
what seemed her one available talent to use for 
herself and the others ? There was surely need 
enough for it, and she could be spared from home 
now. 

As the weeks slipped by they had wrought a 
gradual change in that sick-room — neither that 
which had been hoped nor that which had been 


200 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

feared, but a something between the two that was 
growing sadly familiar now, as long-continued 
illnesses will, and the stream of household life, 
so troubled and barred in its course at first, had i 
learned to make other way for itself, and to flow 
on around the obstruction. Gradually the more , 
alarming symptoms had subsided, and Dane came ; 
slowly back to life again, if that could be called ' 
coming back to life which was a restoration 
neither to health nor to his former self; for, 
having reached a certain point in the progress 
of his recovery, he seemed to stand still. He 
was weak, nervous, irritable, sometimes scarcely 
natural, though less from any injury the brain 
had sustained than from recurring attacks of 
pain that brought a partial return of the fever, 
and with it the feverish visions that had haunted 
him so long as to have become almost as real as 
anything about him. Usually, however, he was 
clearly conscious and recalled the past with a 
bitter remorse, a gloomy despondency, only less 
painful to witness than the periods of listless 
apathy that often followed such outbursts. He 
had confirmed the statement of Bruce & Wells 
by his great anxiety, as soon as reason returned, 
to effect some settlement with them. When he 
learned that this had been done for him, he ap- 
peared relieved, though he had never since ceased, 
in his paroxysms of remorseful anguish, to be- 
wail the burden imposed u[>on the others. He 


‘called: 


201 


explained to Louise, too, the mysterious robbery 
of Tom’s store : 

“ I did it. I came home almost crazed that 
day, knowing that unless I got money in some 
way to try and retrieve my luck I was utterly 
ruined — just as it happened afterward. I had 
thought at first of asking Tom for a loan, but I 
was sure he hadn’t much to spare, and, besides, I 
couldn’t explain the situation or the need. Then 
I remembered that he sometimes kept small sums 
of money in his room. It was a forlorn hope, 
but I determined to try it and get in without see- 
ing anybody if I could. I found the store-key 
where he had left it — I’d locked up for him too 
often as a boy not to know it when I saw it — and 
I at once decided what to do. It wasn’t a very^ 
difi&cult bit of work, either ; and then I brought 
the key here and slipped it into the hall, to keep 
it from falling into other hands as rascally as my 
own, and took the night-train back to Chicago. 
That money turned the tide, and I made enough 
to make good the deficit to Bruce & Wells and 
live flush for a time. If only I’d had sense 
enough to stop then, or if I’d died then ! I 
wish I had.” 

“ Hush !” said Louise, imperatively. “ You 
do not know what you are wishing.” She was 
his tireless nurse, his constant attendant, and in 
these last weeks had taken almost the entire 
charge upon herself. Not through design or 


202 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


carelessness on the part of the others, but as his 
partial recovery had lessened the need for care, 
and other duties had called one here and another ( 
there, Louise had refused to leave him. 

For over Louise herself there had come a i 
change more marked than any that had befallen 
her patient, and one very bewildering to those ; 
about her. 

“ Let me stay,” she answered when Rose 
pleaded to share the attendance with her. “You 
ctm do other things outside, but, as for me, I 
can feel no interest in anything but this. If 
Dane lives, if my utmost service and watchful- 
ness and care can avail anything to bring him 
back to health of body and of mind, I may feel 
that I am at least forgiven, and that there may 
be hope and a new life for me also. Until then 
I can care for nothing else. Rose ; do not ask me 
to.” 

Morbid and untenable as the reasoning was, it 
was useless to argue against it ; Rose knew that, 
as did the others, from many a fruitless effort. 

There are times when truth comes like a light- 
ning-flash, and so had the revelation of herself 
come to Louise Wilber on the night when she 
went away from the sick-chamber and shut her- 
self in her own room with Hetty’s question ring- 
ing in her ears. Did she believe in the life ever- 
lasting? If so, what was it she liad just wished 
concerning her brother? Did she believe that 


'called: 


203 


away beyond this world stretched an endless 
future which dwarfed this little speck of time 
into insignificance ? Did she really believe that 
all these things for which she cared so much 
would soon vanish into nothingness — that these 
human voices, with their flippant praise or blame, 
would die into silence, and only one Voice, in 
commendation or in condemnation, would avail 
anything at last? Intellectually, she had ac- 
cepted these things all her life ; practically, they 
liad been to her as idle tales. 

Aside from the bar of God, there can be no 
judgment- bar so awful as that of an awakened 
and a condemning conscience. And what that 
[ night was to Louise, when the life she had 
I deemed so fair passed in stern review before her 
j own soul and the pitiless light of truth showed 
I its fancied beauty to be but hideous selfishness, 

I its respectability a sham, its righteousness but 
the veriest “ filthy rags,” — what that night was 
in its anguish she never attempted to reveal. 
All the fabric she had so carefully and compla- 
cently reared turned to ashes in the searching 
terrible flame, and her self-scorn was merciless. 
( “ Believe in the life everlasting ? Poor de- 

luded fool ! I never once took it into account,” 
she moaned as she paced the room in an agony 
that would not let her rest. “I have had no 
God but self, and for the sake of my sham re- 
spectability I would have given even poor Dane’s 


204 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


soul — have let it go hopeless out into the dark ! 
Now, if he dies, the guilt of murder will rest 
upon me for ever, for I wished his death. I 
have wished it from the first.” 

White-faced, hollow-eyed^she established her- 
self in the sick-room the next morning, as if 
her sole hope of salvation lay there ; nor had 
she yielded her place since. 

“ It does not seem as if any one else could 
care for him quite as I can, Eunice. — Girls, do 
not ask me. You have other interests — have a 
right to them — but I cannot rest away from him.” 
She answered their persuasions with sad resolute- 
ness. “ I feel as if I had sold his life, and I can 
think of nothing else until it is given back. 
That only can be my token that the past is 
blotted out.” 

“But, Louise, you are unjust to yourself,” 
urged Rose, not wisely, but very naturally, one 
day. “ You have made a pleasant home and 
have been a good sister to us through all these 
years.” 

“ Because it chanced to be Louise Wilber’s 
home and her family, and it was necessary to 
her comfort and dignity that things should go 
in a certain way ; that is all. Nothing has ever 
stirred me from my serene self-worship.” 

She was morbid in her self-reproach, gloomily 
faithless in her refusal to accept anything but 
the one sign, and that of her own choosing, that 


'called: 


205 


pardon could be accorded her. Possibly the old 
evil of self-engrossment still had its existence in 
this persistent fixing of her eyes upon her own 
past, but she did not suspect it. 

The family were sometimes almost as anxious 
for Louise as for Dane ; only Hephzibah, to 
whose kindly heart Rose and Hetty, as well as 
Eunice, had acquired a habit of occasionally 
carrying their worries, was also reassuring: 

“ Never mind ; just wait. That’s a blessed 
verse in the Bible : ‘ The Lord will perfect that 
which concerneth me.’ Perfect it ; he never 
does any halfway work. What he has begun 
he will finish. Just wait. She is in his 
hands.” 

How well it is for us and them that we can- 
not, even in the wildness of our loving impa- 
tience, take out of his hands those who are dear 
to us ! We can only wait. 

Meanwhile, whatever cheerfulness Louise mani- 
fested was in Dane’s progress and for Dane’s sake, 
and to him she became the gentlest, most patient, 
most self-forgetful of nurses. Upon the others 
new demands born of new complications were 
soon pressing. Eunice had for some weeks been 
assisting her husband in the store. With the re- 
linquishment of all present hope of enlarging the 
business, and with the necessity of curtailing it 
in some directions, had come, also, the impossi- 
bility of advancing his chief assistant, as he had 


206 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. i 

purposed. The only thing he could justly and j 
honorably do was to assist him to an advanta- ; 
geous situation elsewhere, though it still further ! 
crippled himself. 

Eunice’s early experience made her a valuable 
aid in this emergency, and she was quick to pro- ■ 
pose taking the vacant place herself. i 

“ With Dane so much better and Hephzibah 
and the girls here, I am not needed at home,” 
she said. She did not say that the home life was 
a luxury that could no longer he afforded, but 
Rose understood it. 

Rose had begun to feel, indeed, since late 
events had given her a clear understanding of 
many matters, that it had been a doubtful right 
for a long time past, but she only looked at her 
sister-in-law wistfully, and said nothing. Since 
she could not offer to take her place — could not 
fill it — what was there to say ? She began to do 
some very earnest thinking, however, and then 
had come that morning reading. So, on that 
particular day just three weeks before Christmas, 
she turned from the calendar to the clock. There 
was a whole long morning before her, and she 
could not hope for a more favorable time. Still, 
when she had donned hat and cloak, the closing 
of the hall door behind her did give her a mo- 
mentary feeling of having been suddenly turned 
out into the world. 

“ Like the poor dove out of the ark,” she 


‘called: 


207 


laughed. “No matter ; I too may come back 
with my olive-leaf, to show that I have found 
standing-room in the world.” 

There were two ways of proceeding on her 
errand. To begin modestly by going to some of 
the smaller stores, where she was not personally 
known, had seemed at first thought to be the 
easier and more practicable, but she soon re- 
jected it in favor of the other plan. 

“ I will go to the very first establishment in 
the place,” she said, with a decided little nod of 
her head. “ They are far more likely to want 
the special kind of help I can give, far more 
likely to pay a fair price for it. They know me 
only as a customer, to be sure, but they know 
who I am and what I am. Madame More has 
often asked my advice about trimmings ; and if 
they do not want me, there really is no reason 
why a refusal from that quarter should be more 
overwhelming than one from any other.” 

So absorbed was Rose in her own thoughts 
that she did not notice a carriage which passed, 
until, at a word from its occupant, the driver 
drew up near the sidewalk and awaited her ap- 
proach. It was Mrs. Shelby who spoke to her : 

“ Are you going down town. Miss Rose ? Will 
you not ride ?” 

The offer — a very tempting one that frosty 
morning — was accepted with thanks, and it was 
only when she was comfortably settled among 


208 WOOD, HAY AND STUBIILE. 

the plush cushions that it suddenly occurred to 
Rose as a very funny thing that a poor damsel 
in search of employment should be rolling away 
on that quest in Mrs. Shelby’s elegant carriage. 
She wondered whether it would make any differ- 
ence to the lady opposite her if she knew. Their 
acquaintance was but slight, chiefly through Eu- 
nice, for whom the elder lady had always evinced 
a cordial liking. * She liked this bright young 
face before her also, and scanned it in her pleas- 
ant motherly way, remembering, with a half-re- 
pressed sigh, the tiny grave, grass-grown for 
many a year, w'here slept her only daughter. 
Slie had a fancy that the brown eyes closed so 
long ago might have looked like these : 

“ Where shall we take you. Miss Rose ?” 

“ To Merton & Reynolds’s, please, if it is not 
out of your way.” 

Mrs. Shelby smiled : 

“ That is an enticing place just now ; I noticed 
their windows yesterday. I suppose you young 
ladies of leisure begin your Christmas shopping 
early, when you have to decide among so many 
attractions ?” 

“It isn’t Christmas shopping with me this 
morning.” Rose flushed a little. She did not 
like to obtrude personal matters, but she still less 
liked to start on her expedition with any feeling 
that she was sailing under false colors. “ I am 
a young lady of so much leisure that I am going 


‘called: 


209 


to see if I cannot dispose of some of it — for a 
consideration.” 

But that was only enigmatical, and Mrs. Shel- 
by looked the question she would not ask. 

“ I mean to see whether I can find a situation 
in their trimming or costume department. I 
want something to do,” Rose explained. 

Her companion did not appear shocked, or 
even greatly astonished. She made a few kindly 
inquiries and commended the wisdom of making 
her first application, as she had decided, at a 
first-class establishment. 

“ I do not know what they may do ; but if I 
had a store with such a department, I should 
consider your services valuable,” she said. 

Only a few words, but, spoken both honestly 
and cordially, they gave Rose fresh courage. 
Some other words were on the lady’s lips, but 
she repressed them, saying to herself, when she 
had left the girl at her destination, 

“ No ; let her try for herself first If she 
succeeds alone, so much the better ; if not, it 
will be time enough to offer help afterward.” 

Rose entered the brilliant store intending to 
make her way directly to the rooms above, but 
her progress was speedily barred by an acquaint- 
ance connected with the house, who saw and has- 
tened to greet her : 

“ Good-morning, Miss Wilber.” The tone 
was a blending of deferential acquaintanceship 

14 


210 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

with prompt business interest. “ What can we 
do for you this morning?” 

Now, it was pleasant enough to meet this 
young gentleman elsewhere, but Rose wished 
she had not met him just here. However, he 
had some authority in the establishment — was a i 
son of the junior partner, and so a very proper 
person of whom to make inquiries. She deter- 
mined to view him only in that light: 

“ I was going up to your costume depart- 
ment — ” 

“Ah ? We flatter ourselves that it is unusual- j 
ly flne this season. I think you will say there ! 
are some very pretty things there.” The slight- ! 
est possible emphasis on the last pronoun seemed 
a delicate suggestion that she knew pretty things j 
when she saw them. “There is one combination 
I’d like you to notice. Stay ! they may be busy 
up there; I myself will show you.” This was 
rather extra courtesy even for Lonsburgh, where 
they did not pretend to manage matters quite in 
the style of the larger cities. 

Rose interposed, the flush deepening on her 
cheeks: 

“ But I am not even a possible customer, Mr. 
Reynolds. I came to see whether your costume 
department could not furnish me a way of earn- 
ing money instead of a way of spending it. Do 
you know whether they have all the help they 
need there ?” 


'called: 


211 


The gentleman was undoubtedly surprised. A 
whistle of astonishment was barely suppressed, 
i though the next moment his face assumed its 
ordinary expression. A flitting thought that, 
she might be jesting vanished before her earnest 
eyes, and some facts and surmises concerning her 
family passed in swift review. Her elder broth- 
’ er’s business was not a very extensive one, though 
the family always appeared to live handsomely. 
The younger brother’s attempted suicide, twm or 
three months before, had been caused by specu- 
lation and business troubles : so the papers said. 

' Probably the estate left by their father was not 
i so large as had been supposed, or there were new 
' embarrassments. All this, and more, flashed 
through his mind in the brief space before he 
I answered gravely and without any troublesome 
I questions : 

I “ I do not know ; Madame More manages all 
i that herself. If there is a vacancy, present or 
prospective, I do not see why there might not be 
a chance for you ; but, as I said, we pretend to 
very slight jurisdiction in her domain. Shall I 
see whether she is at liberty ?” 

The change of errand made no perceptible dif- 
ference in his demeanor ; he led the way as cour- 
teously as, a few minutes earlier, he had purposed 
doing ; and, though his presence was not abso- 
lutely essential, yet, by the quiet way in which 
he obtained Madame More’s immediate attention 


212 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

and explained her visitor’s wish, it secured to 
Rose a private interview and spared her the em- 
barrassment which might otherwise have befallen. 
Having opened the subject, however, he departed 
at once, leaving her to take her chance of success 
or failure. He might have no authority, and he 
had expressed no preference nor volunteered any 
suggestion in the matter ; nevertheless, his intro- 
duction carried with it a certain influence that 
was reflected in the manner of the forewoman. 

A bustling, shrewd, not over-sensitive, but 
well-meaning, woman was Madame More, whose 
pride it was to be considered a “ French artiste,” 
though there was very little French about her 
title, a certain quickness of movement and the 
peculiar pronunciation of a few words, which 
might have been the lingering remains of a for- 
eign tongue early unlearned or only a bit of 
twisted English acquired for effect : 

“And you really want a place here, Mees 
Wilber? You?” 

Rose ignored the surprised questioning of the 
tone, and laughed : 

“ You know, madame, you have told me more 
than once that my taste in trimming and the 
like ought to be a fortune to me if I needed to 
turn it to account ; so I came to see if you could 
turn it to account. And I shall not expect a 
very immense fortune, either.” 

Now, Madame More had said just that, but it 


‘called: 


213 


was said flatteringly to a young-lady customer 
; whose orders always reflected credit upon the 
■ establishment : it was not at all the sort of thing 
i she would have said to a shop-girl desiring a 
place, however unquestionable her taste; so 
Madame More coughed a little, smiled uncer- 
tainly, and murmured a deprecatory — 

“Ah, yes, Mees Wilber! but then — You 
see — ‘Ought to be a fortune:’ that is true; 
but ought is not always to have.” 

But upon- the main point, that of furnishing 
the desired situation, she had not the slightest 
I hesitation. Partly from real kindness toward 
the young lady whose sunny, affable manners 
had always won her hearty liking, but chiefly 
j because she foresaw advantage to herself in se- 
i curing the skill in designing and the taste in 
arrangement which she had so often admired, 
she at once settled that question in the affirma- 
tive. “ She will give such an air to everything. 
If she but pins a bow to one, they will be more 
like to try it,” she assured herself. But aloud 
she proceeded more shrewdly; 

“ There is no vacancy, Mees Wilber ; only I 
will try to make a place — for you. And we 
shall be pretty busy until after the holidays, too, 
and glad of your beautiful taste ; though, to be 
sure, you can’t be expected to do quite as well as 
though you were used to this sort of thing, you 
know.” 


214 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

If madame’s meaning was somewhat obscure, 
it was because she was divided in her own mind 
between her usual deference toward the old-time 
patron, aided by the remembrance of Mr. Rey- 
nolds’s manner and her desire to make the bar- 
gain as profitable to herself as might be compati- 
ble with her rather narrow notions of honesty. 
She suggested and stipulated very carefully, but 
Rose was too happy in what she had gained, as 
well as too inexperienced in business, to make the 
settling of minor points a matter ’of difficulty ; 
and if Madame More completed the compact 
entirely to her own satisfaction, it was scarcely 
less to the satisfaction of her easily-pleased 
applicant. 

“ Now, my dear Mees Rose,” she concluded, 
dropping into a tone which seemed to her a sort 
of compromise between past and present rela- 
tions, “you won’t get tired of showing things 
and trying — some people are so fussy to suit, you 
know — ^nor mind if they are a bit rude now and 
then ? And you can have patience ?” 

“ Oh, I like trying effects.” Rose laughed. 
“And I presume I can be patient — for a con- 
sideration. As for the other — ” She paused a 
moment. “ People are seldom rude to me, I 
believe,” she added, slowly. 

It was true. Notwithstanding Louise’s many 
lectures upon her lack of dignity. Rose was not 
one to whom it would be easy to be im])ertinent. 


‘called: 


215 


Madame More nodded comprehendingly. She 
had a not unkindly heart — what there was of 
it: 

“And when can you come ?” 

“ To-morrow,” answered Rose, promptly ; and 
the interview ended. 

At home it was generally acknowledged that 
Rose had brought good tidings. Tom, indeed, 
thought her success wonderful, though he sighed 
a little over the need for it. But the need was 
indisputable, and all commended and congratu- 
lated. 

Louise, however, wondered that her sister 
could be so happy in the prospect. 

“ It was a right and wise thing to do, but you 
must not expect it to be very pleasant,” she 
said. “ You will not be treated with the re- 
spect you received when you were a customer.” 

But Rose persistently refused to be a martyr. 

“ Possibly I may respect myself enough more 
to compensate for that,” she said. “At least, I 
shall be sure that I have a right to be on the in- 
side of the counter, and I have often felt very 
uncertain about being in the right place when I 
stood on the outside.” 

It might have seemed to many a strange thing 
to rejoice in, since they would view it as “ falling 
so low as to serve as a clerk for a living ;” but 
“ called of God ” has another sound. It makes 
all the difference in the world how one looks at 


216 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


a thing. What if Paul, instead of his “ called 
of God to he an apostle,” had written bemoan- 
ingly, “ No longer a respected Pharisee, a noble 
Roman, but become a poor traveling preacher of 
an unpopular gospel, despised by everybody ” ? 


CHAPTER XIII. 


TARRYING BY THE STUFF. 

L izzie may, walking up the street one 
morning, paused for a moment irresolutely 
before the Wilber house; then, turning, she ran 
up the steps and rang the bell. It had been a 
long time since she had called there. Not be- 
cause she had entertained any clearly-defined 
purpose of staying away, but, as she explained 
it to an acquaintance, “ it was all so awkward, 
you know, and then I wasn’t sure they’d want to 
see me. Everything like that is so horrid ! Dear 
me ! I just couldn’t make up my mind to go.” 

Lizzie missed Hetty a little, hut, of course, 
Hetty could not he expected to go out, in the 
circumstances, and, as other acquaintances were 
more accessible, Lizzie was soon absorbed in 
them. She was one to adjust herself readily to 
any existing state of social affairs : her habits 
of companionship were easily formed or broken ; 
and so, in truth, she had nearly forgotten Hetty. 
But she was suddenly reminded of her as she 
reached the familiar place. Some time had 
elapsed now — long enough to have worn off 

217 


218 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

the edge of the “ awkwardness,” she concluded ; 
and, yielding to her impulse, she called now for 
the same reason that she had previously refrained 
from calling : she felt like it. 

Once in the well-known parlor with Hetty’s 
face before her — albeit there was a change in 
that face which even Lizzie dimly perceived — 
it was easy to drop into safe chatter about her 
own gay world and to enjoy herself as of old. 
Hetty enjoyed it too ; she knew Lizzie too well 
to demand of her what she was incapable of 
giving, and the bright face and the merry talk 
were so familiar that as she listened she could 
almost believe that all that had fallen between 
had been only a dark dream. 

“ It is just a perfect winter day — too lovely to 
stay in the house,” Lizzie announced, at the end 
of a half hour. “ Don’t you want to go down to 
Merton & Reynolds’s with me and look at the 
new winter wraps ? Do go, Hetty ! I positively 
must have something new this winter, aaid I 
want your help.” 

No, it was not a dream, after all. Hetty had 
no expectation, no need, of buying a new wrap, 
though she had nothing that equaled the expen- 
sive garment Lizzie now wore ; and, as for going 
to Merton & Reynolds’s — 

“ Not to-day, thank you. Rose is there, 
though, assisting in the costume department this 
winter. You can ask lier advice in making your 


TABBYINO BY THE STUFF. 


219 


selections if you want it; it will be more valuable 
[ than mine.” 

That was what Hetty said very quietly, and it 
I sounds like an exceedingly commonplace and 
f simple remark; but it was Hetty’s declaration 
1 of independence from several old shackles, 
i “ Rose in the store ! You don’t mean clerk- 
ing ? How queer !” Lizzie usually spoke first 
and considered afterward. “ I mean how nice ! — 
for me, of course. Well, she can tell me. Sorry 
you can’t go. Good-bye.” 

Hetty laughed softly as she closed the hall 
door on her friend: 

“That is settled fairly and honestly without 
any half truths or explainings or fixings over ; 
and that is all I ever need to concern myself 
about any more — just what I am, without any 
shams or pretences, or wondering how it will 
seem, or worrying over what anybody will think 
about it.” 

Hetty drew a long breath of relief over this 
conclusion, which appears so natural as to be 
scarcely worth the stating. Nevertheless, there 
are other people besides little Hetty Wilber who 
are years in reaching it. 

Rose’s new vocation had been a greater sur- 
prise to Hetty than to any one else in the family. 
The possibility of seeking for any employment 
outside of the home — anythihg that would be 
actually remunerative financially — had not even 


220 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

occurred to her until Rose had done it. She was 
startled, but she admired also, and since then 
she had been doing a good deal of thinking. 

“ The idea of being the least bit ashamed of 
her being there, my brave, bright Rose!” she 
answered, indignantly, after Lizzie’s departure, 
to some little whisper away back in her own 
heart. “ I only wish I myself could think of 
something to do.” 

But that was a result not easy to reach', with 
all her study ; she seemed to have no special 
talent or opportunity that could be made avail- 
able. In her discouragement with regard to 
earning, she finally fell back npon plans for 
economizing, though of late there was but little 
left to do in that direction, and went down to 
consult Hephzibah : 

“Do you suppose, Hephzibah, we could do 
our own washing?” 

“Why, yes; I don’t doubt we could, do it,” 
answered Hephzibah, slowly, with an emphasis 
that suggested grave doubts of the wisdom or 
propriety of such an undertaking. “ Yon see, 
I have done many a washing bigger than ours, 
and I reckon I conld do it again.” 

“ Then let us try it,” said Hetty, brighten- 
ing. “ It will he one dollar saved, any way.” 

“ Saved here,” assented Hephzibah, still in a 
slow way. 

“ It would make it a little harder for you ” — 


TARRYING BY THE STUFF. 


221 


Hetty detected the hesitation and guessed at its 
cause — “ but not much, for I would take more 
of the other work upon myself, and, of course, 
I should expect to make it all right, besides — ” 

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that,” interposed 
Hephzibah, briskly enough, at last. “ Bless 
your heart, child ! I ain’t so stingy of myself 
or my strength as all that. I’d do it fast enough, 
to help along ; only I couldn’t help wondering 
whether that dollar was more needed here than 
it is at Mrs. Mixon’s. You see, when we get 
our minds set on economizing, we have to be a 
little careful that we don’t economize the bread 
out of some poor body’s mouth. Mrs. Mixon 
was saying to me the other day that she could 
do our w’ashing earlier in the week now, if it 
would suit us any better, for since times had 
grown sort of hard she didn’t have so much 
work.” 

That was a new view of the case. Hetty con- 
sidered it a moment, and then reluctantly admit- 
ted its force : 

“ I suppose she does need it, with four chil- 
dren and nobody but herself to care for them. 
How many sides there are to everything ! It’s a 
queer world.” 

“ It would be a queerer one, and a harder one 
to live in, if the Bible hadn’t told us, ‘ Look not 
every man on his own things, but every man also 
on the things of others,’ ” declared Hephzibah. 


222 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ But I’m not meaning to take on myself what 
don’t belong to me, Miss Hetty, nor to decide 
other folks’s matters for them.” 

“As if you mightn’t say what you please — 
dear old Hephzibah ! — after what you have been 
to us all this weary time !” interposed Hetty, 
with loving reproach. 

“Well, then, if you go out for a walk this 
afternoon, maybe you could call at Mrs. Mixon’s 
— that wrapper you promised her to cut over 
for Maggie would make an errand, you know 
— and then you can see how things are.” 

Hepzibah had a double purpose in this sug- 
gestion. She did not doubt that the washer- 
woman would be allowed to retain the work so 
needed by her, but she was sure that if Hetty 
talked with her for a few minutes it would be 
accorded, not grudgingly, but gladly. She had a 
fancy, too, that the young girl was growing de- 
spondent by keeping her mind too closely fixed 
on home cares and wants, and that a glimpse 
into other struggling lives would show her her 
own in brighter colors. 

Hephzibah was right; for when, an hour or 
two later, Hetty descended the steep, narrow 
stairway from Mrs. Mixon’s poor little room, 
plans for the hard-working mother and her 
children were mingling with and crowding out 
the plans for herself that had so busied her. 

Lizzie May overtook Hetty as she was walking 


I TARRYING RY THE STUFF. 223 

1 thoughtfully homeward, and she tried to enlist 
I Lizzie’s sympathies also. 

i “ Why, yes ; there are clothes of Ted’s and 
j the children’s that she can have well enough ; 
i mother always gives them to some one,” assented 
Lizzie, carelessly. “Very likely we might send 
her some work, too. I will if I can.” 

“And if you don’t forget it,” added Hetty, 
i wistfully. “ I wish you would remember, Lizzie ; 
it isn’t a trifle to her.” 

Lizzie laughed, and slipped a glittering band 
of turquoise and pearl from her left hand to her 
right : 

“ There ! Since you are so terribly in earnest 
about it. I’ll change my ring, and then I’ll be 
sure to remember — long enough to tell mother 
about it, any way. It’s so odd to have that ring 
on any but the usual Anger that I shall be re- 
minded every time I see it there. And, now that 
I’ve taken Mrs. Mixon’s trials to heart, you must 
help me out of my tribulations. I want some 
pretty boxes to send off* Christmas things in, and 
I’m going to the box-factory to see if I can get 
, exactly what I want ; you must go with me. Now, 
I declare, if you don’t, Hetty Wilber, I’ll put 
that ring back again and forget all about your 
washerwoman ; so there !” 

It was a pleasant day and a pleasant walk, and 
Hetty yielded easily ; yet while she enjoyed it 
she wondered whether Lizzie had always been. 


224 WOOD, HAT AND STUBBLE. 

quite so careless and flippant, or whether she ^ 
only noticed it more because of a change in her- j 
self — that some things had a different ring to her 
now. 

That box-factory, with its quiet, skillful work- 
ers, at once interested Hetty and suggested a new 
possibility. There were employments of which i 
she had never thought. She closely watched the 
swiftly-moving fingers of some of the girls in the 
long room while Lizzie made her selections, and 
went home at last with projects for herself and 
for Mrs. Mixon once more jostling one another 
in her brain. 

The visit to that plain, bare little home, how- 
ever, had brought back her own to its proper 
proportions and modified her somewhat exagger- 
ated notions of the straits to which it was re- 
duced. There surely was no need as yet for 
taking the work from Mrs. Mixon, and there 
might even be a question as to tbe wisdom of 
rushing immediately into a factory to battle for 
daily bread. 

Rose, to whom she referred the matter, urged 
the advisability of somebody remaining at borne 
properly to cut tbe bread already earned : 

“ You see, dear, you are doing tbe sewing and 
keeping up a host of things to which there is no 
one else to attend ; Louise can’t do it while Dane 
requires so much care. We are doing very well 
now, and it wouldn’t pay for you to be away 


TABBYING BY THE STUFF. 


225 


from home, even if your undertaking any such 
work as you mention were not a very different 
thing from my going into a store.” 

“ Yes, there is the sewing and such work : I 
thought of that ; and some one must do it. Only 
it doesn’t seem quite so much like earning,” an- 
swered Hetty, with her newly-awakened and 
rather crude views of independence. 

“ Never mind the seeming: we have done with 
all that, you know ; and, so long as it is useful 
work that somebody must do, why isn’t it earn- 
ing to do it for your own as well as for another ? 
Aren’t we a partnership ? Wait till I show you 
what the Bible says about that ; I do believe the 
Bible tells about everything,” said Rose, bring- 
ing the book ; and the two heads bent together 
over the page in the firelight. “ I came across it 
the other day. There : ‘ As his part is that go- 
eth down to the battle, so shall his part be that 
tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike.’ 
This is just the same thing, don’t you see?” 

“ Well,” laughed Hetty, with the cloud clear- 
ing from her face, “ I will be a home-guard, then, 
for the present.” 

“ Yes, for the present,” assented Rose, thought- 
fully. “There is something else I have been 
thinking of. Hetty, couldn’t you go down to 
the store — ^Tom’s, I mean — on Saturdays and 
days when they are particularly hurried, and 
help a little, and at the same time be learning 

15 


226 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

about the work there? Then, when Eunice 
comes home — as, of course, she ought by and 
by : this is her rightful place as mistress of the 
house — you might be able to take her place there, 
instead of having Tom engage any one else. I 
wouldn’t have allowed Eunice to go if I could 
have done the work, but, with no experience, I 
knew I should be nearly useless. And I do not 
believe any amount of experience would make 
me so valuable there as you can be ; it is more 
in your line.” 

“ Yes, I believe it is,” nodded Hetty, consid- 
ering the subject. “ I’ll see what I can do in 
that direction, and whether Eunice will take me 
for a ’prentice.” 

So Hetty took up her daily duties again, more 
comfortable since her perplexity concerning them 
was cleared away and she had a definite purpose 
in view. She was “ only the one to come home 
to,” she said ; but those who know what a cheery, 
hopeful, sympathizing, womanly presence is as a 
home-centre for the tired workers outside will 
understand that such an “ only ” meant a great 
deal. 

Rose knew annoyances from which she was 
glad to have her young sister shielded, though 
as time passed she more fully appreciated that 
her own position was an exceptionally pleasant 
one. Several circumstances had combined to 
make it so. Mrs. Shelby did not forget the 


TARRYING BY THE STUFF. 


227 


companion of her morning ride, nor the mission 
upon which she had been bound. When she 
learned, as she speedily took pains to do, that 
;! Rose’s effort had been successful without any aid 
of hers, she smiled well pleased, but she did 
not let the matter drop there. When next a 
suitable errand at Merton & Reynolds’s afforded 
the opportunity, she laid side by side the fabrics 
she was considering, and said quietly to one of 
the proprietors — who, with the attention due to 
so valued and influential a patron, was waiting 
upon her himself — 

“ I understand you are so fortunate as to have 
my young friend Miss Wilber in your costume 
department. I should like to have her advice in 
this selection, if you please; her taste is fault- 
: less.” 

I Mr. Reynolds, Jr., who overheard the request 
and promptly despatched a messenger for the 
new clerk, said to himself, “ There is a lady.” 
Whether he meant the assistant above stairs or 
the customer below was not quite evident, nor, 
indeed, of much consequence, since, when he had 
furtively watched them together for a few min- 
utes and seen nothing of patronage or conde- 
scension on the one side, and only the modest, 
self-respecting deference due from youth to age 
on the other, he nodded with equal emphasis : 
“Two of them.” 

It was only a little thing for Mrs. Shelby to 


228 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


do, but it had the effect of placing Rose upon 1 
firmer and higher ground in the establishment, | 
and especially it had great weight with a person 
like Madame More. The latter w^is confirmed I 
in her opinion of having secured a treasure, and ( 
Rose reaped the benefit in the consideration ac- j 
corded her. Even with this disposition to be j 
unusually gracious, Madame More had too many 
peculiar notions and caprices always to be easily 
satisfied. Her requirements were often so un- 
reasonable as to trench sadly upon forbearance, 
and occasionally upon principle. She came into 
the work-room one busy Saturday afternoon with 
her hands full of new orders. 

“ Oh how beautiful !” exclaimed Rose, before 
whom she shook out the shining folds of silk 
and velvet. 

“ You may say so ! And we must have your 
prettiest touches on these, Mees Rose, for they 
are going abroad where they will be seen ; and 
they would like if they could have them by 
Monday noon.” 

“ ‘ Monday noon ’ !” Rose looked up in as- 
tonishment. “ Why, madame, that is impossi- 
ble.” 

Madame tossed her head with a little laugh : 

“ So most people would say, and I believe 
these expected it ; but I have pride in not say- 
ing ‘ Impossible ’ to people. Let them learn that 
we can do meeracles.” 


TARRYING BY THE STUFF. 


229 


“ But we sliall need to learn it first onrselves ; 
there is the difficulty,” suggested her bewildered 
: assistant. 

Madame laughed again : 

“ Let the girls do all they can on them to-night 
— the plain work — and you and I will come 
down for two or three hours to-morrow, Mees 
i Rose, and finish the trimmings. See ?” 

“To-morrow is Sunday?” Rose made the 
statement with a question in look and tone. 
Had madame mistaken the day? 

“ ‘ Sunday ’ ? Yes, to be sure it is Sunday.” 
The answer came a trifle impatiently. “ But, 
my dear Mees Rose, one cannot always be too 
particular. What is it they say about acts of 
necessary mercy or something like that being 
lawful? That’s what this is, you see. We 
must be obliging.” 

Rose did not see, and her grave face said as 
much. 

Madame read it, and shrugged her shoulders 
with growing impatience : 

“ It will be only for two or three honrs. If 
we come early, we can be through in time for 
the church ; and what more can any one ask ? 
I’m no heathen, to be breaking the day myself ; 
but for once in a way so, and to oblige a body, I 
think it is Christian. I didn’t donbt you’d be 
willing to do that much for me, Mees Rose.” 

“ It isn’t a question of obliging, madame ; you 


230 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


know I would do that,” said Kose, earnestly. 
“It is a question of right.” 

“ ‘ Right ’ ? Hoot !” Madame waved the gay 
scarf she had, as if any such flimsy fancy could 
be easily brushed aside. “ If that is all, why, 
see ;” and her blending of explanations and per- 
suasions was repeated with various additions and 
amendments. 

But Rose was spared the necessity of making 
the reply she dreaded. 

“What is that, madame? Some work that 
you think must be finished to-morrow ?” asked a 
gentleman passing through from another room, 
where he might or might not have heard the 
whole conversation. “ Oh no ; that isn’t neces- 
sary. We do not run our business at quite so 
fierce a rate as that.” 

Madame’s knit brows relaxed into a smile ; 
she liked to be reminded that she was zealous 
beyond what was required : 

“Ah, Mr. Reynolds, I know that; you want 
everybody to have their seventh-day rest. I be- 
lieve in that too ; it is more profitable. But I 
do not mind for once in a way, and to oblige. 
They are new customers, too — ” 

“ So I should judge, or they would have known 
enough to leave their orders in time to have them 
filled,” interposed the gentleman, not impressed 
by the importance of the occasion. “ If they are 
offended at not obtaining impossibilities, we shall 


TABRYINO BY THE STUFF. 


231 


probably be able to get along without them, as 
we did before.” 

“ Oh yes, but I do not mind a little overwork 
now and then for the sake of the house,” began 
madame, ambitious always, and intent upon her 
purpose. 

But the next remark from Mr. Reynolds cut 
short the subject: 

“ Much obliged for your good intentions, ma- 
dame, but Sunday work here is not a matter open 
to choice. It is already decided and forbidden 
by the highest authority.” 

“ Oh, of course ! If Mr. Merton has made a 
rule against anything of the kind, that ends it,” 
murmured madame as the gentleman disappeared 
down the stairs. “ But I shouldn’t have expected 
him to be so particular.” 

Rose scarcely thought Mr. Merton the author- 
ity quoted, but she only said so to Hetty at home 
that night when the day’s experiences were 
talked over. 

“And what if Mr. Reynolds had not spoken ? 
Oh, Rose, you would hardly have known what to 
do.” 

“ I didn’t know what madame might do,” an- 
swered Rose, simply, “ but of course I knew ex- 
actly what I must do : that was one comfort. 
There could be no doubt about what was right 
action for me.” 

Hetty looked at her silently. It seemed to 


232 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

her that Rose was growing rapidly as a Chris- 
tian, and there came into her mind a sentence 
from the book of Revelation : 

“These are they which follow the Lamb 
whithersoever he goeth.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“DAY UNTO DAY UTTEBETH SPEECH.” 

W ITH the early spring, just as the first cro- 
cuses were beginning to lift their pale sweet 
faces in sunny garden-corners, came an unex- 
pected visitor to the Wilbers — Aunt Nancy. 
That she should once more be traveling so far 
away from home was to herself a surprise that 
lasted through every mile of the journey. Not 
for any pleasure or j)rofit of her own would she 
have deemed such an undertaking possible, but 
the cry of relatives in distress was more potent. 
Those preposterous “ Lizy Ann’s folks,” whose 
only claim to a place in our story — or to one in 
the world, apparently — lay in their ability to get 
into troubles from which they could not get out 
without aid, had taken the measles ; not singly 
and in proper order, but all at once. They sent 
for Aunt Nancy — they had always sent for Aunt 
Nancy when she was near, and why shouldn’t 
they now that they had moved farther away ? — 
and she had obeyed the call and nursed them 
back to health. On her homeward way she had 
stopped in Lonsburgh to see Eunice. 

“ For I knew you was here for sure this time, 

233 


234 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

and it ain’t very likely I’ll ever get so far again. 
Don’t seem as though Lizy Ann’s folks could 
have anything else the matter with ’em in my 
time ; they’ve had ’most everything since I’ve 
known ’em,” she explained, meditatively. “ Be- > 
sides, I’d been here once, and felt sort of ac- 
quainted all round, you see, and that made me ji 
want to stop again.” !■ 

Aunt Nancy could not feel, as did some of j 
the others, how different was the circle gathered 
around the table that night from the one she had 
met just two years before; but, quick of eye and 
keen of memory, she missed Louise and Dane. 
The invalid’s room — for it still was that, though 
months had passed — with its weary apathetic oc 
cupant, appealed to all her motherly pity and 
nursely instincts, and she spent not a little of her i 
time there. i 

“ He needs a change ; he ought to be away • 
out in the country, where he can get a clean, I 
broad sweep of heaven and earth. He’s stared | 
against stone walls too long ; that’s how he looks 
to me. I mean to take him home with me,” she 
declared. 

But no one believed that she could do it, 
though the desirableness of a change was un- 
questioned. Dr. Ansley had prescribed it in his 
later visits, discontinued now as useless, and the 
family had urged it, but in vain. Dane only 
wanted to be “ let alone ” where he was, he said. 


'DAY UNTO DAY UTTERETH SPEECH.” 235 


sometimes despondently, sometimes irritably, but 
always persistently. He returned the same an- 
swer when Aunt Nancy pictured in her simple, 
homely way the old farmhouse which was so 
dear to her, the meadows, the hills and the 
wheatfields, and tried to awaken a desire for the 
pure fresh air for which she was herself longing. 

But Dane only listened with the faint wintry 
gleam of a smile on his white face and the dreary 
pain still in his eyes. He turned toward her at 
last; perhaps she did not understand or know 
how hopeless it all was : 

“It’s of no use. Aunt Nancy. If a fellow 
with a good place and a fair start in life wasn’t 
content with what he could earn, but plunged 
into the maddest sort of speculating to make 
money faster, what would you call him ?” 

“A foolish spendthrift or a gambler. The 
last is sort of the way I look at it,” replied 
Aunt Nancy, judicially. 

“ And if he was not satisfied with risking his 
own money, but used money that was entrusted 
to him, and some that never was trusted to him 
at all, what would you call that ?” 

“ Robbery and swindlin’.” 

Whatever Aunt Nancy had heard or surmised, 
the answer came in clear, concise English. She 
was not used to parrying questions or to search- 
ing for delicate phrases. 

Louise started. Dane’s despairing, remorseful 


236 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


moods had always been met so differently, and 
even then so unsuccessfully, that she trembled 
for the effect of this ; but there was a sudden 
gleam in his eye, as if he found a momentary 
relief in listening to the strong, unequivocal ^ 
words. 

“ That’s what it amounts to, without any shad- 
ing or quibbling about it,” he said. “ I’m ex- 
actly of your opinion. Aunt Nancy. Now do ' 
you wonder that any one who had gone so far 
should think the best thing left for him was to 
put himself out of the way ?” 

“ Out of whose way ?” demanded Aunt Nancy. 

“ Not God’s, nor his own, I take it ; he’d hardly 
be simple enough to expect to do that. I never 
could see the sense of trying to mend a hole by 
covering it with a patch that had a bigger hole 
in it. Cheatin’ men out of the money that’s 
theirs can’t be set right by trying to cheat 
God out of the life that’s his — not so far as I 
can see.” 

Louise watclied her brother’s averted face with 
troubled eyes ; she was constantly haunted by a 
dread that in some despairing hour he would re- 
peat the attempt so narrowly frustrated. And 
to what depths of gloom might he not be driven 
by this plain talk ? 

But presently, with a sigh, Dane partly turned 
his head, withdrew his gaze from the strip of 
gray sky visible above the opposite buildings. 


‘DAY UNTO DAY UTTEBETH SPEECH.” 237 


and said, not very relevantly, but with no visible 
accession of despondency, 

“ I don’t mind if I go home with you. Aunt 
Nancy. It’s a pity for you to take so much 
trouble, and all for worse than nothing; but, 
since you will be so kind, I don’t mind going 
— if Louise is willing to go too. She has had 
a hard time of it, poor Louise !” 

Louise was not only willing, but eager, though 
only for Dane’s sake. She hastened all the ne- 
cessary preparations for departure, ostensibly that 
Aunt Nancy might not be delayed beyond her 
appointed time, but really because she feared that 
Dane would change his mind. So quickly was 
it all accomplished that the family could scarcely 
realize what had happened when the fire and the 
lights died out of that upper room and it was 
left once more silent and tenantless after all those 
sorrowful months. This change seemed the last 
hope, all there was left to do for Dane, and they 
anxiously awaited the result. Only Hephzibah 
moving about her work chanted continually, out 
of time and out of tune often, but never out of 
heart, 

^‘Fearest sometimes that thy Father 
Hath forgot, 

When the clouds around thee gather ? 

Doubt him not ! 

Always hath he comfort spoken, 

Never hath his word been broken : 

Better hath he been for years 
Than thy fears.’’ 


238 'tt'OOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

To Louise the suddenness of the movement, 
the unexpected emancipation, were more bewil- 
dering still, but the most bewildering part of it 
all was herself. She had been so sure that all 
old feelings, old hopes and joys, were dead that 
at best there remained to her but a life of grave 
self-sacrifice and reparation, and here, with the 
first hour’s ride in the lovely spring sunshine, 
her pulses began to throb with the joy of health- 
ful life, and her heart to know something of the 
old glad thrill. Oh wise Psalmist, to write, 
“ Day unto day uttereth speech ” ! But who 
can interpret the strange sweetness of that 
speech or its mysterious power over human 
hearts? The tree rustles with its secret, the 
shifting leaf-shadows weave it in their won- 
derful meshes, the stream murmurs it like the 
incoherence of a happy dream and the clouds 
smile with it as they float softly by : we only 
gaze and listen and cannot understand, yet are 
soothed, strengthened, comforted, even against 
our wills. 

Louise rebelled against its influence. What 
right had she to any gladness in sunny skies or 
fair fields? No nun in convent-cell had ever 
shut herself in to lifelong penance more deter- 
minedly than had Louise in the depths of her 
gloomy heart, but the merry sunshine laughed in 
the face of all her sombre resolutions. It was a 
persistent mockery, too, as the days passed. The 


^‘DAY UNTO DAY UTTERETH SPEECH.” 239 

orchard grew white with bloom, the birds built 
their nests under the eaves of the old house, and 
the great apple tree at the door scattered its 
pink-and-white blossoms on her head. The 
simple busy routine of the farm encroached un- 
noticed upon her morbid broodings. There were 
so many things that she could do — that she could 
scarcely avoid doing as a slight return for all the 
hospitable kindness showered upon her — and all 
her handiwork was such a marvel of skill and 
beauty in the eyes of those about her, that she 
could but grow interested in the doing. Then, 
too, her charge stood no longer between her and 
the outer world. The secluded life of that upper 
room in the city was impossible here, nor did 
Dane seem to care for it. His physical health 
steadily improved. Change of air, scene and 
surroundings was beneficial, and nature slowly 
wrought its healing. He could sit for hours 
on the wide, open porch without meeting any in- 
quisitive gaze from passers-by, or, as his strength 
increased, could wander down the winding road 
without encountering curious or pitying acquaint- 
ances. He followed the men to the fields occa- 
sionally, and even accepted the invitations of the 
children to hunt for early berries in the woods 
or for fish up the stream ; but his solitary rambles 
were so many that for a time they troubled Lou- 
ise, who could not shake off the dread that had 
haunted her so long. 


240 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Dane must have read this apprehension in the 
anxious eyes that followed him, for one day, when 
Louise had walked with him to the gate, he turned 
hack for a moment with his melancholy smile, 
and said meaningly, 

“ You need not fear, Louise ; I have not suf- 
ficient ambition left to undertake anything I ever 
attempted before — not even that.” 

So, in enforced leisure from her one absorbing 
occupation, Louise began to take an interest in 
others, and awoke one morning to the sudden 
consciousness that she was no longer miserable, 
and that the sadness she thought was to be a life- 
long burden required constant readjusting to keep 
it in its place. She was shocked at the dis- 
covery, and astonished at herself. Was she, 
then, so shallow — her deepest feelings so ephem- 
eral ? 

“ Child, you’d better have gone with the rest 
down to the berry-pasture ; it would have cheered 
you up,” said Aunt Nancy, turning from the 
asparagus-stalks she was cutting to the shad- 
owed face in the doorway. “ You mustn’t worry 
so about Dane.” 

“ I’m not worrying about him — just now — ^but 
I’ve no right to be cheered up : that is the trou- 
ble,” answered Louise ; and the confession from 
her lips, the appeal in her eyes to the plain un- 
learned woman by her side, were a more power- 
ful proof of the sinceiity and the worth of the 


“DAY UNTO DAY UTTEBETH SPEECH:’ 241 

change that had passed over that proud spirit 
I than years of ascetic gloom could have been, 
i “Aunt Nancy, if I had been what I ought 
to have been, such a sister as I might have 
1 been, perhaps Dane would not be what he is 
I now.” 

“ Perhaps not,” assented honest Aunt Nancy, 
reflectively. “ I s’pose it’s mostly so when any 
' one goes down that way beside us : the rest of 
' us around haven’t done all we could to help 
; it.” 

“And when all this trouble came, I did not 
think of the sin or the danger, but only of the 
ji disgrace it brought to me. I wished — I can’t 
i tell you what I did wish; only if Dane gets 
well, I may hope at last it is forgiven. But if 
i he dies or is never himself again, a whole life 
can’t atone for it.” 

“Very likely,” Aunt Nancy acquiesced, calm- 
1 ly. “ Our atonement ain’t likely to be worth 
j much more than our righteousness, and the Lord 
i won’t have none of either of ’em : he’s set his 
I own. Maybe, from thinkin’ yourself chief of 
I saints, you’ve only slipped over to thinkin’ your- 
I self chief of sinners, because it’s natural to think 
» of a body’s self as chief somehow. Just you be 
I content to be one of the Lord’s common folks, 
I child, and take him at his word. Don’t go to 
I settin’ any special signs of your own that you 
I are or ain’t forgiven. Whether Dane lives or 


242 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

dies, ‘ the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from 
all sin,’ because he says so.” 

Was that the message earth and sky had been 
trying to whisper to her? Louise wondered as 
her gaze wandered out through the open door- 
way over the peaceful landscape of hill and 
meadow. 

By an opposite door Dane had entered in time 
to hear the last sentence, and it at once caught 
his attention. He did not know of what they 
were talking, nor feel the slightest curiosity to 
trace the connection of the words that interested 
him ; but when Aunt Nancy had left the room, 
he slowly repeated them, as if trying to recall 
some memory : 

“It is strange, Louise. I don’t know enough 
about the Bible to have them come naturally, but 
those words came to me from somewhere when I 
was lying there at home at the worst. It was the 
first impression or consciousness of anything after 
— after that first night — a voice calling to me 
from this world or some other : ‘ Dane ! Dane ! 
with God nothing is impossible. The blood of 
Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ 
It seemed to come to me across eternities of si- 
lence and nothingness, and to call me back. I 
cannot tell you what all that time was like — as 
if I traveled an immense distance to return even 
to the power of speech and motion. After that 
I seemed to get near enough to the world to be 


“DAY UNTO DAY UTTERETH SPEECH.” 243 


drawn into its bustle again, hurrying to catch 
trains and meet creditors. But I had only 
strength to hurry and to try because of some 
vague hope underlying those words. There 
might be a possibility : with God nothing was 
impossible. There might be a way of blotting 
out the wrong. It was all confused — only like 
a spar that I never quite lost hold of through all 
the drifting. I cannot tell you how it was, Lou- 
ise; I can’t remember anything clearly.” He 
1 spoke slowly, brokenly, as if trying to arrange 
I fragments of thought and separate visions from 
.! reality. 

To Louise there came a sudden illumination. 

! Even as Dane, helpless and unable to rise, was 
: tortured with his feverish efforts to lift the bur- 
i den and pay the debt that Love had already borne 
i and paid for him, so she too had been vainly 
staggering under the weight of an atonement 
she could not make— one never meant for her — 
and painfully striving to pay a debt that Love 
had already canceled. She was free. Some- 
thing of this she tried to say to Dane, though 
the language was new to her lips as to her heart ; 
i but he only looked at her with his sad dark eyes 
and made no reply. His speaking at all of the 
past had grown rare since they came to the farm. 

As the quiet days slipped into weeks, and the 
weeks became months, Louise began to think of 
the future — speculatively at first, then anxiously. 


244 


WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 


Dane’s strength had steadily returned, until he 
seemed nearly restored to health, but he said 
nothing of ever taking up active life again, or 
even of leaving this sheltered nook among the 
hills. Their stay had already been a long one, 
and in justice to their hospitable friends, as well 
as to the family at home, Louise felt that it could 
not be greatly prolonged. But what could she 
say to Dane ? Even if it were possible to 
awaken energy and ambition, what prospect 
awaited him? The letters from home spoke 
cheerfully of their return, but they spoke of no 
plans beyond — how could they ? — and Dane read 
them without comment. More and more per- 
plexing and tangled grew the subject to Lou- 
ise, until at last, as the only thing that in fair- 
ness could be done, she talked it over with 
Aunt Nancy. 

“ Let him alone, child, and yourself too. By 
and by the thing to be done and the spirit to do 
it will come to him together. In the mean while, 
we are more than willing to have you stay here, 
dear heart ! Why, it’ll be lonesome to me when 
you’re gone. I didn’t s’pose Eunice’s folks-in- 
law ever could seem so near to me,” concluded 
Aunt Nancy, confidentially. “ Fact is, it was all 
nice at your place, you know, but there was so 
many and so grand-like that I sort of feared Eu- 
nice might be just hid out of sight there, and not 
be half appreciated.” 


“DAY UNTO DAY UTTEBETH SPEECH.” 245 


“I suppose it was like the hiding the little 
leaven in the three measures of meal only until 
the whole was leavened,” answered Louise, with 
a thoughtful smile ; and Aunt Nancy’s homely 
face glowed with pleasure. 

While she counseled patient waiting, the kindly 
heart set itself to earnest working. She and the 
farmer talked matters over, and a letter requiring 
much painstaking and study and several evening 
sessions over the kitchen-table after the rest of 
the family had retired was finally despatched to 
the West. It had the unexpected result of 
bringing an answer in the person of Aunt 
Nancy’s brother. 

“ I calculated to come in the spring, you know, 
and then I concluded I might as well come this 
fall — maybe better,” explained Uncle Seth. 

So he made his visit, transacted his business, 
keeping his shrewd, kindly eyes well open, but 
saying little of what they saw until a day or two 
before his departure. Then he proposed to both 
Dane and Louise to go to his Far- Western 
home : 

“ There’s plenty of room and of chances — rich 
lands to be taken up, and work enough to do for 
fell who are willing to do it. Eunice’s brothers 
have got a good start there, and I don’t see why 
you shouldn’t get one too. It’s the best place in 
lihe world to build up ruined health and ruined 
fortunes.” 


246 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“And ruined characters too?” questioned 
Dane, sadly. “ I’d have to begin at the begin- 
ning ; I haven’t even a foundation left upon 
which to build.” 

Uncle Seth made not the slightest pretence 
that he either ignored or misunderstood the 
remark. 

“ ‘ Other foundation can no man lay than that 
is laid, which is Jesus Christ,”’ he answered, 
gravely but hopefully. “ That is always left, 
and there may be long years before you in which 
to build worthily and well.” 

To Louise the words sounded like a prophecy; 
her eyes kindled with a new hope, and she spoke 
quickly and eagerly : 

“ Let us go, Dane ; let us begin anew.” 

The going home, therefore, when it came, a 
week or two later, was only for a brief visit and 
the making of such preparations as were neces- 
sary for a longer journey and an absence that 
might be permanent. 

A busy household it was. Rose still with Mer- 
ton & Reynolds and Hetty in the store with 
Tom, while the requisite shopping, sewing and 
packing hurried both Eunice and Louise. Yet 
those last crowded days were very sweet ones. 
Dane’s recovery, the closer, tenderer ties that 
hound them all together, the hopeful outlook for 
the new life of those who were going and the 
steadily-returning prosperity to those at home 


“DAY UNTO DAY UTTERETH SPEECH.” 247 

were among the many causes for thanksgiving 
that softened the pain at parting. They “ hadn’t 
the least time to be sentimental,” Rose said, 
laughing through the tears that glistened in 
her eyes ; but there was a deeper reason for 
their cheerfulness in the grateful feeling that 
all was so much better than it might have 
been — than they thought it ever possibly could 
' be again. 

The train of causes and effects appeared in a 
different light to one not very charitable out- 
: sider. Miss Gale, who chanced to be at the rail- 
road station on the morning that Louise and 
Dane departed, bade her old acquaintance good- 
bye very pleasantly, but remarked to a compan- 
ion as they passed on, 

“ How the Wilbers are scattering ! It is just 
what I expected when Tom brought his wife 
there — that the house wouldn’t be large enough 
for them all much longer. They lived comfort- 
ably enough at home before, but you see how it 
is now — Hetty in the store. Rose clerking for 
strangers, and here are Louise and Dane starting 
off to the ends of the earth. Mrs. Wilber is 
one of those quiet, gentle women that every- 
body calls amiable, and I have reason to know 
that the family resented any intimation that they 
were not delighted to have her come ; but she 
has succeeded in getting rid of them all and 
having the house to herself, all the same.” 


248 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


Even if Eunice had heard the comment, it 
would scarcely have disturbed the peace in her 
heart born of some words that Louise had whis- 
pered at parting. 


CHAPTER XV. 

WHAT LINE? 

T he first snow of the season — a mere flitting 
promise of the coming winter — lay in soft 
white fluffs on the window-sill as Hetty closed 
the shutters one evening. A little flutter of 
preparation, caused by a note of invitation from 
Mrs. Shelby, was going on in Hose’s room, and 
Hetty, detained at home by a sore throat — “ by 
the impossibility of appearing in a flannel neck- 
lace,” she said — was assisting at her sister’s toilet 
in the double capacity of dressing-maid and critic. 

Mrs. Shelby liked to gather the young peo- 
ple about her occasionally — her young people, 
she called them, mindful always of the bright 
young life that would doubtless have filled her 
home but for that little grave which had opened 
so early. Others had long called her childless, 
but her heart never lost its grace of motherhood. 
To her the golden head and the brown eyes were 
less a memory than a presence, and her daughter 
still seemed to walk at her side in that strange 
soul-companionship which so many of us know 
with some beloved one dead to the world, but 
not to us: 


249 


250 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


“Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone. 
But present still. 

And waiting for the coming hour 
Of God’s sweet will.” 


In all our busy coming and going we bear them 
with us. We ask no place for them at hall or 
board, but we do not go alone. The hand long 
folded restrains us in many a plan, the silent 
voice casts the decisive vote in many a choice. 
Their influence is as potent in our lives as 
when changing eye and speaking lip met our 
own. Sometimes, in watching a great congre- 
gation slowly gather, there comes a wandering 
thought of those others, unseen, whom so many 
are bringing with them. What would it be to 
the speaker if he could behold his great invis- 
ible audience? 

So far as the Wilbers were concerned, par- 
ties had been almost unknown for the last year. 
Rose had been too busy to bestow much thought 
upon the matter, but she experienced a glow 
of pleasurable excitement in donning gala- 
dress once more and in finding herself again in 
brilliant-lighted, sociably-filled rooms, especially 
when they were Mrs. Shelby’s beautiful rooms ; 
and tbat lady welcomed her, not with the warm 
greeting of a hostess alone, but also with that 
special regard which she had of late shown for 
Rose. 

'■ My dear, I am glad you are here,” with a 


WHAT LINEt 


251 


slight emphasis on the last pronoun and a 
lingering pressure of her hand. 

It was pleasant to meet old acquaintances 
with whom her busy life of the last year had 
not brought her in contact; and though the 
event of a few months previous in her family 
history had undoubtedly been discussed with 
more or less charity by most of those present, 
and her own course in accepting a situation in 
a store had excited some wondering comment, 
Rose met neither neglect nor condescension. 
Mrs. Shelby’s friends, indeed, did not belong 
to the class of persons from whom one might 
expect anything of the kind, and, moreover, the 
cheap novel which represents a loss of station or 
wealth as immediately followed by the desertion 
of friends and the scorn of all acquaintances 
is not a particularly good exponent of average 
human nature. Bright, winsome Rose did not 
look in the least like one to be slighted, patron- 
ized, or even pitied, and it had not occurred to 
her to expect anything of the sort. Neverthe- 
less, there was a moment of swift mental query 
when she saw Mr. Reynolds approaching her. 
In the old days she had met him frequently in ^ 
such social gatherings, but since she had taken 
her place in the store they had met only there. 
Would the change in her position make any per- 
ceptible change in his manner? 

There was a very perceptible brightening of his 


252 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

face as lie saw her, and, though his greeting did 
not stray beyond a common formula, it held a 
slight echo of Mrs. Shelby’s emphasis: 

“ I am glad to see you. Miss Rose.” 

“ Not having had that pleasure for two or 
three hours,” supplemented Rose,. demurely, but 
with a covert determination that her new posi- 
tion should not be ignored — or, rather, that it 
should not be treated as a thing which there 
was the slightest reason for ignoring. 

“ I am glad to meet you beyond the domain 
of tape-measure and scissors,” he amended, 
calmly. “Have you seen this portfolio of en- 
gravings? Mrs. Shelby commissioned me to 
ask your opinion of one of them in particular.” 

Rose was satisfied. She turned readily to the 
congenial topic, and soon an animated group 
had gathered at the library-table discussing 
books and pictures. The luxurious rooms, the 
rare flowers and the soft dresses about her all 
gratifled her love of the beautiful. The hour 
was one of relaxation and rest after her busy 
day, and she had been thoroughly enjoying it 
when, later in the evening, Mrs. Barrows came 
and sat down beside her. This lady — the one 
whose tracts had once so disturbed Hetty — was 
not, of course, numbered among Mrs. Shelby’s 
young friends, but she had dropped in unex- 
pectedly and been pressed to remain, with a 
laughing injunction to imagine herself as young 


WHAT LINE? 


253 


as possible, A thoroughly good woman she was, 
but possessing no keen insight into character, 
and therefore often lacking in tact. She had 
been wanting to talk with Rose, and seized 
the opportunity as soon as she saw her for the 
moment unoccupied. 

“I want to see if I cannot interest you in 
our industrial school and in the South-Side 
mission,” she began, taking a chair beside her. 

“That will not be hard to do,” Rose an- 
swered, promptly, “for I am already interested 
in the little I know of them, and I should be 
glad to learn more. My sister-in-law, Mrs, Wil- 
ber, has been connected with the school for girls 
— with Mrs. Shelby, you know — almost from her 
first coming here, but we are not so familiar with 
this new branch of the work ;” and an attentive 
listener she proved, asking eager, intelligent 
questions. 

But when Mrs. Barrows closed her account 
by asking her to become one of the teachers. 
Rose shook her head in decided negative: 

“ I cannot do that. I should like it, if I were 
not so busy.” 

Mrs. Barrows’s face grew grave at once. 

“ Do not refuse now, but think over the mat- 
ter seriously and see whether you have any right 
to decline,” she said. “ I was very glad to wel- 
come you to the church a few months ago, and 
I have been hoping ever since to see you enter 


254 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

heartily upon some of the great lines of Chris- 
tian work. Your sister has taken a class in the 
mission school.” 

“Yes, but Hetty finds rather more leisure 
than I. I am in the store all day.” 

“ Well, I do not mean to dictate, of course, 
but I hope you will think of it seriously and 
see if you ought not to find time for it, or for 
some kindred duty. There is so much to be 
done ! and all the doing calls for self-sacrifice. 
I do not doubt that you are busy, my dear young 
lady — we all are; but the question we should 
ask ourselves is whether we are busy about 
the Master’s work or our own. St. Paul was a 
teut-maker, but what would we think of him 
now if he had been too busy with his tent- 
making to preach the gospel? He did not let 
anything interfere with that. Every Christian 
should seek some line of work — ” 

“ Miss Wilber can do it. — Miss Kose, you play 
this?” Voices from the piano interrupted the 
conversation. 

Mrs. Shelby wanted some “good, old-fash- 
ioned choruses,” and Rose joined the musically- 
inclined group which had summoned her. But 
a slight cloud lay over the remainder of her 
evening. A little tangle of questions that could 
be neither answered nor straightened just then 
ran in and out among the lines of song and the 
snatches of talk. Was she seeking only her 


WHAT LINE* 


255 


! own things ? Had her life appeared inconsist- 
ent and unworthy to others who were watching 
her ? Her conscience was not ready with an ac- 
cusing affirmative, yet she could not feel wholly 
at ease. The words of one like Mrs. Barrows 
had sufficient weight to perplex and trouble 
^ her until she could quietly analyze them and 
i| reply to them. She was glad when it was time 
j to withdraw and escape from the hum of voices 
I into the stillness of the starlit night. One 
i voice, indeed, was still at her side, and she felt 
1 a sudden impulse to submit the subject to this 
i person’s clear, manly, business-like head — a head 
: controlled, she knew, by an earnest heart. An 
opportunity speedily offered in some remark 
) about the swiftly-flying hours and busy days. 

“And there are so many things that one 
ought to do and cannot,” said Rose, with her 
perplexity forcing its way into her tones. 

“Ought? and cannot?” he repeated, quizzi- 
cally. “I thought impossibilities were not ob- 
ligatory.” 

“What others think we ought to do, then.” 
That statement sounded weak enough, and Rose 
laughed as she realized it. “ I do not mean that 
others have any right to fix the measure of our 
responsibility for us, or that we have any right 
to allow ourselves to be bound by their decisions 
if they attempt it — not that, of course ; but there 
is so much that needs doing ! The harvest is great 


256 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

and the laborers are few in so many fields, and 
these few feel — how can they help it ? — that we 
are indifferent and unfaithful when we do not go 
to their aid; yet the common daily work of life 
takes so much time ! It grows perplexing some- 
times, almost as if there were a conflict of duties, 
though I am sure that can’t be.” 

“No !” His answer was quick and decided. 
“And the common daily work, as you call it, 
is, or ought to be, as important and as sacred 
as the uncommon and not daily. When a man 
chooses any vocation, he gives to the world by 
the very fact of his choice a sort of pledge that 
he will bend his energies in that particular direc- 
tion and do his best to make himself efficient in 
his trade or profession. He betrays confidence 
if he does not do so. The doctor has no right 
to neglect his patients, the lawyer his clients 
or the teacher his pupils for any outside work. 
When something else is found to be better worth 
doing, let him say so and give up the first ; that 
is the only honest course. I think the trouble 
springs from the mistake of labeling one set of 
duties ‘Secular’ and another ‘Religious.’ If 
one’s calling is a good and useful one, its meth- 
ods and its gains consecrated as Christians’ meth- 
ods and gains should be, why doesn’t it come 
under the direction, ‘ Whatsoever ye do, do it 
heartily, as unto the Lord and not to men ’ ?” 

Rose liked that ; it was the way in which she 


WHAT LINE? 


257 


had at first viewed going into the store. The 
mists were clearing away, but she said, remem- 
bering Mrs. Barrows’s parting remark, 

“St. Paul was a tent-maker, but he did not 
let his work prevent his preaching?” 

Mr. Reynolds promptly negatived that prop- 
osition : 

“ That is transposing the case. St. Paul was 
a teacher — ‘ called to be an apostle ’ — and he did 
not allow tent-making, or anything else, to in- 
terfere with his work. Tent-making was not 
his vocation ; it was only an avocation taken 
up as a help and never permitted to be a hin- 
drance.” 

The mention of St. Paul suggested a recent 
lecture upon the character of the great apostle, 
and from thence the conversation drifted nat- 
urally to a variety of topics, and Rose made no 
effort to recall it to its starting-point. Never- 
theless, when she was in her own room once 
more, she returned to the original subject, not 
with any troubled inquiry or misgiving — that 
had vanished — but very thoughtfully. The 
words repeated in varying forms so many times 
that evening — “ line of work ” — had fixed them- 
selves upon her mind. 

“ And every one ought to have a ‘ line ’ — some 
marked and definite plan of Christian usefulness 
— along which he works continually,” she said to 
herself. “ But mine must run parallel with my 

17 


258 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


common daily toil ; it must not hinder the work 
which I have agreed to do, and which I am paid 
for doing.” 

What it could not be was easily decided ; 
what it should be was not so clear, though Rose 
thought of it often. One evening she took coun- 
sel with Hephzibah, whom she found sitting by 
the fire in her cozy kitchen, swaying comfortably 
to and fro in her favorite creaking old rocker, 
and singing softly to herself — ^that is, as softly 
as Hephzibah could sing — 

“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the LordT’ 

“It ’most seemed as if the old chair itself 
had learned that tune from hearing it so often 
and was trying to sing it,” Hephzibah said. 
Her fingers were busy with the knitting that 
was seldom out of them when she sat down 
to rest — no crocheting or netting, but plain, 
substantial stockings. Years before, when the 
claims of a children’s hospital had enlisted her 
ready sympathy, she said, “ I can’t preach, I 
can’t teach and I’ve no fortune to give ; but I 
can knit and knit she had, never asking nor 
expecting to know what tired, tottering or stray- 
ing feet were clothed by her constant ministry. 

Rose thought of that as she watched the click- 
ing, hashing needles for a minute. She liked, 
now as of old, to hear Hephzibah talk, and she 
did not take particular pains to make all her 


WHAT LINE? 


259 


meaning clear, quite sure that her old friend 
would somehow find her way to it. 

“I’m trying to find what my line of work 
ought to be, Hephzibah,” she said, taking a 
low seat beside the rocker. 

The knitting-needles flashed on, and the 
silence lasted so long that Rose was forced to 
add an interrogative — 

“Well ?” 

“I was a-thinking you couldn’t mean any- 
thing in the first table,” said Hephzibah, med- 
itatively. 

“ ‘ First table ’ ?” repeated Rose, wonderingly. 

“ Yes ; the law of duty was on two tables when 
the commandments were given, you know. The 
first one, about loving the Lord our God with 
all our heart — that’s got to go through every- 
thing; it can’t have any special line of work, 
because it must be in every line of all our lives. 
So it’s the second table you mean, I take it — ^love 
to our neighbor. There’s special ways of show- 
ing that by helping along whatever’s good and 
fighting against the evil.” 

“ Yes, and there are so many causes, so many 
needs, so many agencies, that it seems as if every 
one ought to be working systematically along 
some line. What is mine, Hephzibah?” 

“Child, that ain’t a thing any one can find 
out for another.” 

Rose nodded : 


260 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ I have learned that. Two or three people — 
good people, too — have tried to settle mine for 
me, but it wouldn’t fit with other things that 
Providence has fixed, and so I am sure that it 
cannot belong to me. But how shall I find my 
own?” 

“ By letting it find you and keeping your eyes 
open to know it, the same way the good Samar- 
itan found his neighbor,” returned Hephzibah, 
slowly. “He wasn’t running all over the coun- 
try to look for one; he was only going from 
Jericho to Jerusalem — where he had to go, any 
way — and the man lay in his road. And, speak- 
ing about Jericho, don’t you remember how the 
Israelites first took that city? They went up 
‘ every man straight before him.’ I reckon it’s 
so still. We’ll find all of the Jericho- wall we 
can tackle lying straight before us.” 

It was doubtless because of this talk and 
the thoughts it awakened that Rose began the 
next day more carefully to scan her familiar sur- 
roundings at the store, and more closely to notice 
those with whom she came in contact. Madame 
More’s department busied three or four besides 
herself, and in the other branches of the business 
there were employed as clerks several girls with 
whom she was thrown into more or less frequent 
companionship. She knew them all by name 
and greeted them pleasantly in daily intercourse, 
but, aside from that, she knew very little of any 


WHAT LINEf 


261 


of them. She did not meet them elsewhere, and 
she had never thought of being one of them in 
any other than a business sense. Nor had the 
girls made the slightest effort to claim her as one 
of themselves. The frank friendliness of her 
natural tone and manner had saved her from 
any charge of offensive exclusiveness or attempt 
at superiority, but the odd mixture of deference 
that from the first had been visible in Madame 
More’s tone had combined with several other cir- 
cumstances to mislead them in regard to Rose’s 
real position. They were “ regulars,” they said, 
and she was “ only an optional ” — meaning there- 
by that she had taken her present place because 
it suited some whim of her own, and not from 
any necessity — and they held themselves slightly 
aloof. 

There had been no purpose in this attitude, 
so far as Rose was responsible for it; she was 
scarcely conscious that it existed. But this day 
she found herself watching with new interest the 
faces and voices of those about her, and so she 
noticed, as she started on her homeward way in 
the evening, that a young girl who had left the 
store a moment later was turning in her direc- 
tion. Rose paused and offered the shelter of her 
umbrella against the falling snow, which seemed 
feebly struggling against a temptation to dissolve 
into a chilly rain : 

“You are going my way to-night?” 


262 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“ As I do every night,” answered Miss Ray, 
accepting with a little nod of thanks the offered 
protection. “Only you usually leave a little 
earlier than I. There are so many things to 
put in order down stairs, and it often happens 
that some lady who does not know what she 
wants contrives to drop in at the last minute 
and toss two or three boxes upside down for me 
to straighten and put back again. That’s what 
clerks are for, you know.” The laugh that com- 
pleted the sentence was not altogether pleasant, 
though one could scarcely tell what was the jar- 
ring note. 

Del was a trim little maiden, arrayed in a 
tightly-fitting cloak made of some inferior ma- 
terial, but profusely trimmed. A little turban 
decorated with the gay wing of a bird was 
perched jauntily on the mass of short clustering 
hair, which was parted, rather boyishly, on one 
side. The black eyes were a trifle too independ- 
ent in their unabashed glances, and the brisk, 
piquant manner held just a suspicion of pertness. 

Perhaps Rose could have found among the 
girls no one who at first view would have seemed 
less congenial, yet it was a very pretty face that 
she looked down into from her superior height — 
and so young ! She began to wonder about its 
history and belongings. 

“ Have you far to walk ?” she asked, without 
replying to the latter part of the remark. “ It 


WHAT LINEf 


263 


is a disagreeable night to be out, but a walk in 
such weather makes the getting home at last all 
the pleasanter.” 

“ If one has a home to go to. Unfortunately, 
I haven’t,” with that little hard laugh again. 
“ Going home to bright fires and a cozy tea-table 
sounds inviting, but a little upper room with a 
weak register and a single smoky lamp isn’t such 
an alluring prospect. And the table ! Well, do 
you know I wonder sometimes what the cloth 
would look like if they didn’t always use red 
ones to keep them from showing the stains ? I 
can’t imagine where they get so many faded red 
ones, either. Shouldn’t you suppose there would 
have to be a new one once in a while ?” 

“ You are boarding, then ?” 

“ Yes. Why, Miss Wilber, that is the way 
with a good many of the girls at the store. We 
are not clerking for the fun of it.” 

The emphasis was lost upon Rose ; she had no 
idea of the position so generally ascribed to her. 
There was nothing remarkable in the fact that a 
number of the girls were without homes or had 
homes at a distance, and so were boarding in the 
city ; only she had not thought of it before, and 
she said so : 

“Your people do not live here? You must 
have been brave, to have come by yourself.” 

The last was ventured inquiringly. From 
even the little Rose knew of the world, it seemed 


264 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

a hard and perilous step for one so young and 
untaught to take alone. But her companion 
answered carelessly : 

“Oh I had to do something; there wasn’t 
much choice. My people — my mother and un- 
cle — live on a small farm. I wasn’t really 
needed at home, and there’s nothing for a girl 
to do in the country unless she goes to help some 
of the neighbors. I will not work in anybody’s 
kitchen, and so I came to town. An acquaint- 
ance got the place for me. Mother was uneasy 
about it at first, and she’d be horrified if she 
knew how different a thing boarding is here 
from what it is at home, where some sociable 
people take you in and make you one of the 
family.” 

“You must come and visit me at my house 
some night,” said Rose, with a sudden resolve. 

“Thank you; I’d like to.” The acceptance 
came in the easy, self-assured tone of one not 
to be beguiled into an expression of pleasure 
by any one’s notice. Then she flashed her black 
eyes full upon Rose with a swift second thought : 
“ I was not trying to move your pity by my har- 
rowing tale, you understand. Miss Wilber.” 

“ Of course not ! Did my invitation sound 
like charity?” laughed Rose. 

Some one passed them so closely as almost to 
jostle against them, and as Rose turned her 
umbrella aside the stranger recognized her 


WHAT LINEt 


265 


companion and greeted her with a careless nod, 
without the formality of lifting his cap. But 
he had barely passed before he turned and called 
after her : 

“Oh, Del! If this snow amounts to any- 
thing, I’ll get a cutter and come ’round for 
you Sunday. Don’t forget.” 

The tone was so familiar, the promise given 
with such an unmistakable air of conferring a 
favor, that even Del Ray’s cool cheek flushed 
resentfully ; and there was a trace of embarrass- 
ment in the laugh with which she turned again 
to Rose: 

“ He needn’t be so sure that I’ll go without his 
taking the trouble to ask me.” In a minute she 
added apologetically, as if conscious of some un- 
spoken criticism, “Sunday is almost the only 
time we girls can have for any pleasuring — the 
only time that is our own.” 

“Is that our own?” questioned Rose. She 
said nothing more, and half feared even that 
had been too much as she noticed the quick toss 
of the little head at her side. Whoever would 
have any influence here must move carefully. 

Presently they reached a corner, where Del 
paused : 

“I turn here. Much obliged to you. Miss 
Wilber. Good-night.” 

Rose pursued the remainder of her homeward 
walk very thoughtfully, and to Hephzibah, who 


266 WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 

helped her to brush oflf the clinging snow- 
flakes in the hall, she said, 

“I think I have found my bit of Jericho- 
wall.” 

Later in the evening, when supper was over 
and she and Hetty had settled down by the 
flreside for a little chat over the day’s doings, 
she revealed her plan more fully : 

“ Only it is scarcely well enough defined to 
be worthy the name of plan just yet. But I 
must get acquainted with those girls, Hetty. I 
want to have them here, two or three at a time, 
when I can manage it naturally, so that it will 
be only sociability, without the slightest appear- 
ance of a mission ; they would resent that. And 
perhaps we may be able to arrange for some reg- 
ular evenings afterward. Eunice will be willing, 
I know. And you will help me ? Think of any 
young girl living as that little Del Ray does !” 

A ring at the door-bell interrupted the con- 
versation, and Hetty, who answei’ed the sum- 
mons, came back with twinkling eyes ; 

“ I think your plan will be successful, my 
dear, for one of your fellow-workers at the 
store is down stairs inquiring for you now.” 

But when Rose, with wondering eyes, went 
down, she met Mr. Reynolds. 


CHAPTEE XVI. 


THE JERICHO-WALL. 

R ose fancied that had it not been for that 
first prompt acceptance of the invitation to 
visit her Del Ray would willingly have declined 
when, a few days later, she was asked again. 
There was a moment’s hesitation before she 
answered : 

“ You are very kind, Miss Wilber. I don’t 
quite know why you should be,” with a quick 
glance at Rose’s face, as if to see whether it be- 
trayed any other motive than ordinary friendli- 
ness. “But I don’t pretend to be so devoted 
to my boarding-house that I can’t tear myself 
away for a single evening. I’ll come, thank 
you.” 

Del had made some change in her dress when 
she returned to the store after dinner, having 
donned her best in honor of the occasion, but 
was looking, it must be confessed, no better for 
the additional ribbons and jewelry which, after 
the manner of many of our young republicans, 
she seemed to regard as foreign noblemen do 
their badges and orders — the greater the num- 

267 


268 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE 

ber that can be worn, the higher the rank of the 
wearer. 

Rose wondered at, without appearing to notice, 
the girl’s slight reluctance. “ Has the Jericho- 
garrison taken the alarm?” she questioned of 
herself, with a smile, as she thought of the in- 
nocent siege she had planned. Later in the 
afternoon she decided that more than one had 
designs upon that particular bit of the wall. 
One of the girls in madame’s room, who had 
taken her work to a window-seat for the full 
benefit of the waning light, glanced out for a 
moment, and said to a companion, 

“ There is Del Ray’s green shadow again.” 

Rose, sitting near another window, overheard 
the remark and looked down into the street. 
Sauntering slowly by on the opposite walk was 
a tall, dashing, red-faced girl showily dressed in 
green of oddly-varying shades, and adorned with 
a redundancy of bracelet and necklace which 
made poor Del’s efforts in that line appear fee- 
ble, by comparison. 

“ ‘ Shadow ’ ! I should think she was the sub- 
stance, unless you mean an afternoon shadow that 
is twice the size of the original,” answered the 
one addressed. 

In a moment or two the girl turned in her 
walk and lingeringly passed the store again, 
provoking a laugh from the two observers. 

“ What an anxious look ! Why doesn’t she 


THE JERICHO-WALL. 


269 


come over, instead of watching the place in that 
style ?” 

“ Oh, she does come now and then, when she 
has a few cents to spend, and so can cover a 
chance to talk with the excuse of wanting to 
buy something. But she knows as well as Del 
does that clerks are not expected to receive visits 
at the store. I detest that girl.” 

“ Del?” 

“ No ; Del is well enough, or would be if she 
were let alone. I mean the green one, though I’m 
happy to say I don’t know her,” declared the 
one who had first called attention to the pedes- 
trian. 

“ ‘ They’re hanging men and women 
For the wearing of the green,’ ” 


hummed the other, with a questioning arch of 
her eyebrows. 

The stranger passed on out of sight, and out 
f of the conversation also; but Rose had observed 
)[her closely enough to recognize her when she 
) ,saw her again on the street that evening as she 
3 and Del were walking home. This time the 
f wearer of the green was not alone, but was talk- 
ijing and laughing rather loudly with the man 
[ 'who had accosted Del a few evenings before. If 
((Del noticed their approach, she did not care to 
I'meet them; for she suddenly proposed turning 
)' down another street, and remarked, by way of 

ii 


270 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


explanation, that she grew “so tired of always 
going one way.” 

“It is bad enough always to stop at the one 
place when the walk ends. Do you know I was 
actually so frantic for a little variety the other 
night that I tore all my room to pieces and 
moved every bit of furniture into a new place ? 
Of course it only made it all a little more ugly 
and inconvenient than it had been before — which 
was scarcely necessary — but, any way, it was a 
change.” She said it with her short laugh, and 
quickened her steps with nervous haste as they 
turned the corner. Rose thought some one called 
after them, but her companion did not seem to 
hear, and the call was not repeated. 

Presently the great window of a picture-store 
flashed its wealth of beauty upon them, and they 
paused involuntarily. A curious change passed 
over Del’s face as her gaze fell upon a beautiful 
engraving of an old farmhouse. The hard 
brightness died out of her black eyes. 

“ That looks a little like home,” she said, sim- 
ply — “ almost as if mother or Uncle Eben ought 
to be in sight.” 

“ Don’t you get homesick sometimes ?” asked 
Rose, wondering what different forces were bat- 
tling for the girl. 

“ Yes ; I’d like to see my folks,” slowly. 
“ There isn’t much use in thinking about it, 
though, for of course I can’t expect a vacation 


THE JERICHO-WALL. 


271 


often, and I can’t go home without one, though 
it is only twenty-five miles. It is too late for 
any train Saturday night after the store closes. 
I don’t know whether any train goes out Sunday ; 
but even if there is one, I’d have to walk five 
miles out of the twenty-five, and then there 
would be no way of getting back in time Mon- 
day morning. I haven’t had a chance to go for 
a long time. Well,” hesitating a little, “ I mean 
any chance I’d accept. Some one did offer to 
take me out in a carriage one of those pleasant 
Sundays last month, but I wouldn’t go.” 

Del misinterpreted Rose’s quick look, and an- 
swered it with a slight toss of her head : 

“ Oh, it wasn’t because I’m so particular in 
that way. Miss Wilber. A girl isn’t just a ma- 
chine, if she does have to earn her own living. 
We need a little breath of fresh air and pleasure, 
and Sunday is the only time we have. They say 
it was intended for a day of rest, anyhow. It 
would have taken most of the day to go and 
come, to be sure, but he wouldn’t have cared for 
that, and I’d have liked to see them well enough, 
only — ” She broke off abruptly, and then added 
with sudden vehemence, “ My mother may be an 
old-fashioned woman living in the country, but 
she is as good a mother as ever lived, and I don’t 
care to take any friend there who hasn’t sense 
enough to appreciate her, that’s all.” 

“No, but people who haven’t sense enough 


i 


272 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

to appreciate those who are dear to me needn’t 
waste what sense they have in efforts to appre- 
ciate me. I should not value ‘ friends ’ of that 
sort,” Rose answered, pointedly. 

Del flushed, but her reply was in the old 
careless tone : 

“ Oh, well, a friend is one thing, and a mere 
acquaintance is quite another, A girl can’t 
afford to be too particular about sense or other 
qualifications in all her acquaintances if she is 
going to have any fun. He is only a cousin of 
a friend — or acquaintance — of mine ; that is how 
I came to know him. He is obliging enough to 
take us out for a drive or to a theatre or concert 
now and then. We took our ride in another 
direction that day, that w^as all the difference.” 

“ What would the mother at home think of 
that way of spending Sunday?” Rose ventured 
to inquire. 

Del darted a quick look at her, with a non- 
committal “ Humph !” but after a moment she 
said with sober emphasis, 

“My mother is a good woman.” 

She vouchsafed no other reply to the ques- 
tion, but Rose was sure then that in that lonely 
farmhouse a mother’s prayers and influence were 
leagued with her in her efforts to carry the wall, 
and her interest and purpose deepened with the 
thought. 

Tbe constraint, from whatever cause, that had 


THE JEBICHO-WALL. 


273 


marked Del’s manner through the day gradually 
I wore away under her cordial welcome to Rose’s 
; home. She seemed to yield to the atmosphere 
I of the place and allow herself to enjoy her pleas- 
I ant surroundings without the fear that she might 
i be compromising her independence. The black 
- eyes noticed everything, but a certain quietness 
I of demeanor took the place of her usual brisk 
I self-assertion, and, though there were occasional 
finishes of flippant, exaggerated gayety, she wore, 
for the most part, a softened tone and look which 
were new to Rose, and which won Eunice and 
Hetty. 

It happened that the visit was soon repeated — 
' sooner than Rose would have dared to plan it 
I had it been left to her planning. A sudden 
storm of rain and sleet met her when she left 
the store one evening, and increased in violence 
, as she tried to hasten through it, until she was 
i finally forced to stop for shelter under a sub- 
stantial wooden awning. While she waited two 
' other dripping, wind-beaten figures hurrying up 
the street sought the same shelter, and proved to 
be Del and another clerk from Merton & Rey- 
: nolds’s — a slender, delicate girl who was laugh- 
I ing, coughing and panting from her race through 
: the storm. 

“ Such a wetting is enough to kill you, Fanny, 
I with that cold of yours,” declared Del. 

“Oh, I guess there’s no danger of that,” 


274 WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 

answered Fanny, laughing at her own forlorn 
appearance, but coughing still, with her hand 
pressed to her side. 

“ You must go home with me, both of you, as 
soon as we are able to go anywhere,” said Rose ; 
and, though the girls protested against such a 
“raid” upon Miss Wilber’s home, and insisted 
that they could walk the longer distance, they 
were glad to yield to Rose’s urging, for the 
storm abated so slightly as to make even that 
near home sufficiently difficult to reach. 

There could be little ceremony in the in- 
troduction of such wet and woebegone-looking 
damsels. Wardrobes were hastily searched for 
articles of apparel that could be made available, 
and the arranging and effect of the borrowed 
plumage afforded no little merriment. Then 
there was a visit to Hephzibah’s cozy quar- 
ters to find places for drying wet hats and 
wraps, and to press ruffles and overskirts into 
something like respectable order for the mor- 
row’s wearing. The bright, tidy kitchen, with 
its warm fire, its tempting promise of supper 
and the hospitable presence of Hephzibah her- 
self— prompt with kindly offers of help and 
quick to bring some soothing remedy for Fan- 
ny’s cough — might have impressed any one by 
its cheery contrast to the stormy night without, 
and to the homeless Fanny it was doubly pleas- 
ant. 


THE JERICHO-WALL. 


275 


“ Oil, Miss Wilber, it sounds queer to say so, 
I suppose, but really this storm is the nicest thing 
that has happened to me for a long time,” she 
said, with a laugh, but with something very like 
tears in her eyes. She was as unlike Del as pos- 
sible — a shy, quiet girl who as soon as the fun of 
her adventure was over had little to say. But 
her face told how thoroughly she enjoyed the 
home-like circle at the tea-table, the pretty parlor 
with its books — at which she looked longingly — 
and the music, which she said was a rest. 

Del did not seem to find it so. She was bright 
enough through the earlier hours, but there was 
a scarcely-veiled uneasiness in her manner when, 
as Tom came in. Rose changed her playing to a 
familiar hymn and the Bible was opened for the 
evening reading. Fanny found that also a rest, 
to judge from her face as she leaned her head 
upon her hand, but Del breathed a sigh of relief 
when she and her companion had been shown to 
their room for the night and the door closed upon 
them. 

“ It is so odd and so nice to be here to-night !” 
with her appreciative glance wandering from the 
dainty toilet-cushion to the embroidered curtains, 
the work of Louise’s busy fingers. “ It is like a 
chapter out of another book.” 

“Ye — s.” There was evident reservation in 
Del’s slow answer. “ Miss Wilber is real nice, and 
they are all very kind ; only-— only I can’t get rid 


276 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

of the feeling that they are the sort of people 
that would like to do me good.” 

“ Well, they did do us good,” said bewildered 
Fanny. “And I’m sure we needed it badly 
enough — two such looking creatures as we 
were !” * 

“ Oh, I don’t mean that,” answered Del, in- 
cluding supper, dry clothing and such minor 
comforts in the word contemptuously empha- 
sized. “Of course I’ve no objection to that. I 
mean the Sunday-school kind of good.” 

There was no reply to this not very definite 
statement, and after a moment Del proceeded, re- 
moving collar and pins with unnecessary energy : 

“ For my part, I don’t like to have people al- 
ways thinking I need to be better. I’ll take care 
of myself, thank you ! Besides, different people 
are differently situated. If I had a home like 
this, I could do a great many things that I can’t 
do now. I can’t always choose my pleasures ; I 
have to take such as I can get.” 

What all this meant Fanny could not under- 
stand, and probably Del did not very clearly 
understand herself; but the patient mother far 
away, with gray head bowed on her toil-worn 
hands, was not praying in vain that night. The 
girl felt the silent invisible forces that were gath- 
ering around her, and secretly shrank from the 
power which she acknowledged only by her 
defiance. 


THE JEBICHO-WALL. 


277 


That stormy night’s visit, it seemed to Rose, 
had opened the way for her plan as nothing else 
could have done. When Fanny, the next morn- 
ing, again expressed her thanks and her pleasure, 
seconded not quite so warmly by Del, Eunice, 
who found her own interest awakened in the 
project, said, 

“ You must come again, then. I should think 
some of you girls who are away from your own 
homes might find it pleasant and homelike to 
meet here occasionally for an evening of music 
or reading. Why not?” 

Fanny’s speaking eyes certainly held no nega- 
tive, and Del’s black ones fiashed with pleasure, 
though they clouded a moment later. 

With the project once proposed, and under such 
favorable circumstances, it was not difficult to 
carry it into execution. Rose’s slight acquaint- 
ance with the girls was aided by Fanny’s more 
intimate knowledge and Fanny’s eagerness in the 
matter. 

“ And one doesn’t need to know people partic- 
ularly well to do them a favor ; it’s a very differ- 
ent thing from asking a favor,” said Del, suc- 
cinctly, though her own behavior in the case in 
question — now discussing it with enthusiasm, 
now studiously indifferent — somewhat detracted 
from the force of her logic. 

In a few weeks the first regular “ evening ” was 
held. Mrs. Shelby had sent over a choice col- 


278 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

lection of foreign views — “a bit of ammunition to 
be used against the Jericho-wall,” she said in her 
note to Rose. The room was bright with fire- 
light, the piano open, and books, magazines and 
music were in tempting profusion. There could 
be no doubt that the plan was a success from the 
first, so far as giving pleasure was concerned, and 
a course of reading was soon begun and books 
discnssed that conld scarcely fail to bring mental 
and moral profit. For the slow ripening of still 
richer fruit there was, of necessity, longer wait- 
ing. The healthful friendships, kindly interest 
and Christian inflnence having their source here 
were like an nnderground stream unseen in its 
hidden windings, attracting no attention by the 
rush of a noisy current, its course only traced by 
the freshness and bloom that spring into life 
above it. 

But over Del, who had first suggested the 
thought. Rose grew sadly puzzled. She came 
once or twice to the “ Circle,” as the girls had 
christened their gathering, and then was absent 
for several weeks, and Rose was sure avoided her 
in the store and elsewhere. One Sunday she met 
her accompanied by the girl in green, whose 
face, upon a closer view, was coarse, bold and 
far from agreeable. Del passed with the slight- 
est possible greeting, bnt her companion bestowed 
upon Rose a cool stare, eying her from head to 
foot and taking in various details of dress, upon 


THE JERWHO-WALL. 


279 


which she began to remark before the subject of 
her criticism was fairly out of hearing. 

The next day, however, when an errand 
brought Del to Madame More’s room, and she 
was compelled to wait for a few minutes, she 
seized the opportunity to recount gayly the 
delightful drive she had enjoyed yesterday, 
describing the beauties of the park with its 
evergreens tipped with snow, and telling how 
far she went and what a grand time they had. 
She was talking to a quiet girl at Rose’s side, 
but she watched Rose as if expecting some 
comment from her. There was none, and she 
went away with a shade of disappointment on 
her face. Then she overtook Rose in her 
noon walk, and boldly plunged into the topic 
she had for weeks seemed anxious to avoid : 

“ Clear and cold, isn’t it ? I’m glad of it ; it 
will thicken the ice on the river and make splen- 
did skating. Though it doesn’t make so much 
difference about that, since we have the rinks. 
Oh, Miss Wilber, you don’t think it wrong to 
go to the skating-rink, do you?” 

“The right or the wrong of nearly all such 
pleasures lies in the when, where and with 
whom,” answered Rose, quietly. 

“ Oh, the when, with a girl who has so little 
time to herself, is whenever she can; and the 
with whom is about as easily settled; any one 
who is passably agreeable, who is obliging enough 


280 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


to take lier, and who has plenty of money to 
spend in that way, of course is the right one.” 

The sentiment and the careless utterance of 
it were repulsive enough, but there was a trou- 
bled, wistful look in the girl’s face that contra- 
dicted her words. Rose dimly guessed that the 
present attitude was one of bravado, but she 
could not know that the unquiet spirit was seek- 
ing to provoke the expression of an adverse 
opinion in the desperate hope that combating 
it might silence inner voices. 

“Well?” Del broke the pause with an im- 
patient questioning monosyllable. 

“ Is it well ?” asked Rose, half sadly, half in 
disgust. Yet something drew her to the girl: 
she was so young, and there was that loving, 
anxious mother. “ If you believe what you 
have just said, Del, it would be a waste of words 
to argue with you ; if you don’t believe it — I do 
not think you do — you do not need any argu- 
ment.” 

“ I don’t half believe anything — or anybody ; 
that is the trouble,” declared Del, with sudden 
fierceness, ending the conversation as abruptly 
as she had begun it by turning hurriedly away 
as she reached her own street. 

Rose was perplexed and discouraged. She 
talked the case over with Hephzibah, who for 
some reason had been greatly attracted to the 
gay little maiden who had visited her kitchen. 


THE JEEICHO-WALL. 


281 


“ Child,” said Hephzibah, emphasizing her 
remarks by a vigorous kneading of the rolls 
for the morrow’s breakfast, “the Jericho-walls 
didn’t go down the first day, nor the second, 
and all the marching of all the Israelites would 
have been of no use if the ark of the Lord had 
not compassed it. Wait for that.” 

All earthly communication may be cut off, 
but the wires are never down between the soul 
and heaven. One who can pray is not power- 
less in the presence of any evil, and so waiting 
did not mean idleness, however Del might fancy, 
now congratulating herself upon the fact, now bit- 
terly resenting it, that she was let alone. She 
liked the Circle, but she clearly saw that these 
new associations must mean, a little farther on, 
cutting loose from some old ones, and this she 
was not quite ready to do. 

“ If I could just go and be one of them with- 
out losing my independence !” she said to herself, 
quite unconscious that her vaunted independence 
was something that she had already parted with, 
and that she was really led by a stronger will 
than her own. “ But it’s just as Maria says : if 
we get in with that sort of people much, we shall 
have to do as they do ; and then good-bye to our 
good times ! Not that I believe all that Maria 
says, either, and I think she carries her notions 
too far the other way ; but I want to be free to 
enjoy myself a little.” 


282 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

One cannot enjoy one’s self unless that self is 
on sufficiently good terms with its conscience and 
its surroundings to be enjoyable, however, and in 
those days Del’s certainly was not. Her very 
restlessness drove her often to a recklessness of 
speech and action that otherwise she would not 
have known. It was not strange that Rose, 
watching her, feared that the resisting walls 
were growing stronger and higher. She learned, 
as time passed, what influences were around the 
girl, and she occasionally met Maria and her 
cousin, and heard more about them from the 
frequent comments of others. 

“ I think Del would be more — would be a 
little different from what she is if it were not for 
them,” said Fanny, hesitatingly, one day, as she 
saw them pass. “ Maria — the ‘ green shadow,’ 
the girls call her — is the daughter of the woman 
with whom Del boarded for a few months when 
she first came here, I believe, and she has been 
entangled with them ever since. I can’t see 
what the attraction is.” 

The cousin Rose once pointed out to Tom, and 
asked if he knew him. 

“ Only by seeing him pass the store every day. 
He has a position of some sort in a warehouse 
down town.” 

“And you know nothing of his standing or 
character ?” 

“ Nothing more than I can see. He has held 


THE JEBICHO-WALL. 


283 


that one place for about a year, but I do not 
think he is growing rich very fast. Liquor, 
cigars and livery-stable bills must eat into his 
earnings pretty deeply, from what I have seen 
of him after business-hours.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


OUR MISSIONARIES. 

H etty, coming in from the store one even- 
ing, glanced into the parlor and found it 
empty. Stepping to the foot of the front stairs, 
she made a speaking-trumpet of her hands and 
playfully hailed the upper story : 

“John Maynard, are you there?” 

“Ay, ay, sir!” answered Rose’s merry voice; 
“ but I won’t promise to ‘ hold on ’ long if sup- 
per is ready.” 

“ It isn’t supper ; it’s a letter from Louise,” 
said Hetty — “ a grand, generous letter, judging 
from the thickness of the envelope. She was 
so inconsiderate as to write your name on it in- 
stead of mine, so you must come and open it at 
once. We want to hear.” 

Two useful, happy years had rounded and 
wonderfully brightened Hetty’s face, and just 
now, with the light in her eyes, one could scarce- 
ly believe it had ever worn the old expression of 
discontent and unrest. 

A part of that letter, which was listened to so 
eagerly, we too may care to hear : 

“We have come down here to the cattle-ranch 


284 


OVR MISSIONARIES. 


285 


for the summer, the boys and I — ‘the boys’ 
meaning, of course. Max, Charlie and Dane. 
They come every year, and this season are de- 
lighted to have me here to keep house for them. 
Funny housekeeping you would call it if you 
could see me in my elegant suite of apartments 
just now! There are two sleeping-rooms, one 
my own and the other occupied by the boys, 
while the third apartment — parlor, sitting-room, 
dining-room, or all together, whatever you please 
to call it — completes the establishment. It has 
the merit, this last room, of being large and airy. 
The floor is softened and made comfortable with 
some pretty strips of carpet, and, besides these, 
the furnishing consists of a huge fireplace — that 
is the chief attraction — our dining-table, a little 
work-table, a set of book-shelves, a few camp- 
chairs and my willow rocker.. Since Charlie 
[and I succeeded in constructing a lounge from 
two of our packing-boxes and a few yards of 
chintz, we consider our abode quite grand. The 
■rough walls are decorated with a few cheap 
prints, a calendar, three rifles and — laugh if 
:you like — some of my tidies. You used to won- 
der in the old days when I made so many tidies 
how I could use them all, but those I brought 
with me have served a variety of purposes — as 
table-covers, chair-covers and tapestry. I fancy 
the boys must think I have a supply of all sorts 
and sizes, for Max innocently inquired the other 


286 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


day if I had ‘an old tidy or something that 
would do for a horse-blanket: Romeo needed 
one.’ It is evident, Eunice, that you never 
properly educated your brothers in the fine 
arts, hut I am doing my best to remedy the de- 
fect. Seriously, I am trying to take care of them 
for you, and they are as kind to me as any broth- 
ers could be. 

“Well, to return to decoration, you would 
scarcely pity us for our lack of chromos and 
paintings if you could see the picture framed by 
the open doorway before me. The blue sky does 
not show a single cloud, and the air is so clear 
that I can distinctly see the mountains miles 
away and long dark belts of timber to the right 
and left. Between stretches a great green plain 
tossing and rippling in the wind, flecked here 
and there with . brilliant flowers and holding 
something of the strange charm of the ocean 
in its wide expanse and ever-changing surface. 
Somewhere on that green billowy sea I should 
doubtless discover my three boys if I took the 
field-glass from its place to look for them. And 
if I took down the great horn from its place on 
the wall and blew my most warlike blast, I could 
probably summon them ; so, you see, my soli- 
tariness is not unrelieved. 

“ Besides, there is my Norwegian. She and 
her husband live in the little cabin but a few 
rods distant from this one — it is our kitchen as 


OUB MISSIONARIES. 


287 


well as their abode — and do a great deal of the 
heaviest work about the place. They live here 
winter and summer, indeed, and keep everything 
in order when the rest are away ; for the cattle- 
ranch is something of a farm and dairy as well. 
Strong-armed, faithful and willing is my Nor- 
wegian. You must be content to know her only 
by that title, for, though she has a name, she 
spells it with the lavish profusion of consonants 
peculiar to her country, and I don’t pretend to 
spell it at all. For other companionship and 
intercourse with the outside world we have the 
weekly courier from Uncle Seth’s. We call him 
a courier because it sounds well, but he comes in 
a lumbering wagon and transports a variety of 
commodities to and fro. I hope he will bring 
me a letter from some of you to-morrow. 

“I am using my leisure-hours in study — 
chiefly concerning simple remedies for common 
diseases and the care of the sick ; for while I 
was teaching last year I had many calls for aid 
and advice of that sort from among the poorer 
families. They seemed to think ‘the teacher’ 
ought to know everything. I do not expect to 
become the marvel of wisdom they consider me, 
but I am determined not to remain quite so ig- 
norant on a few practical subjects as I have been. 
Max and Dane are talking of opening a trader’s 
exchange in Wampum City next winter : Uncle 
Seth thinks it might be made profitable ; so, you 

i 


288 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

see, we liave plans for tlie future as well as work 
for the present to busy us. Then we have our 
hooks and music. How I have sometimes longed 
for the piano ! Still, we can all sing, and Char- 
lie has his flute ; so we have our concerts. 

“ They are appreciated too. The other even- 
ing we were singing church and Sabbath-school 
hymns in the glow of our firelight — a little fire 
on the hearth is nearly always agreeable here in 
the evenings, not only for its cheeriness, but for 
its warmth — when a dark face suddenly appeared 
in the doorway, and then another, and finally 
three tawny blanketed forms stole quietly in and 
squatted on the floor, a little back from the fire, 
as comfortably as if they had secured reserved 
seats. I was somewhat startled, though in Wam- 
pum we often have visits from wandering In- 
dians ; but Max motioned me to go on without 
paying any attention to them, and our concert 
proceeded until we were all tired. Then our 
strange guests departed as silently as they had 
come, without even begging for anything to eat ; 
which was certainly unusual. The next evening 
I was alone, when a brown face looked in on me 
again, and I confess I was cowardly enough to 
start and cry ‘ Oh !’ I think my alarm rather 
flattered the valiant brave, for he assured me 
very graciously, ‘ Me no hurt. More sing.’ His 
two friends accompanied him, as before, and there 
was a squaw or two besides. I summoned the 


OUR MISSIONARIES. 


289 


other members of our quartette, and ‘ more sing ’ 
it was for an hour or longer. How much our lis- 
teners could understand of ‘ Jesus, Lover of my 
soul,’ ‘Just as I am,’ and a host, of other songs we 
could not tell ; but we chose the simplest gospel- 
hymns, and hoped they could comprehend some- 
thing of their meaning. In any case, they lis- 
tened silently and decorously, and quietly went 
away again. 

“ That reminds me of a meeting you would 
like to hear about. We had heard there was 
to be one at a log schoolhouse four miles away. 
Imagine yourselves going four miles to a week- 
day meeting ! But I assure you the news of one 
even so near was no common item of intelligence 
here at the ranch. The little log schoolhouse is 
only so used at irregular intervals, when some 
‘ traveling preacher ’ takes it in his route, and 
the congregation only such as can be gathered 
by the notice spread from one cabin or ranch to 
another. Our Norwegian brought us news of 
this one, and we determined to go. It was a 
pleasant moonlight night, and the long horse- 
back-ride was delightful. 

“ When we reached the place, we found a 
number of horses fastened near it, and two or 
three rough wagons. The room was lighted, not 
very brilliantly, with candles, and a fair audience 
of men, women and children — some of the wom- 
en had babies in their arms — occupied the rows 

19 


290 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

of benches and talked in low tones while they 
waited for ‘ the meetin’ to take up.’ The pros- 
pect of any such culmination, however, grew 
doubtful as time passed. The men by twos and 
threes gathered restlessly about the door, and 
even sauntered out into the road, only to return 
with the announcement that they ‘ couldn’t ketch 
no sight of the preacher yet.’ It finally became 
evident even to the most sanguine that there was 
no longer any hope of his arrival. 

“‘Anyhow, he didn’t promise to he here for 
sure, but he ’lowed to be here. Providence per- 
mittin’,’ explained one charitable soul, anxious 
that the absentee should not be unjustly cen- 
sured. 

“As I looked around on those faces — tired, 
toil-roughened, care-lined faces, many of them — 
it seemed to me a pity that they should miss that 
for which they had come so far. The same 
feeling must have possessed an old frontiers- 
man near the door, for he slowly rose from his 
seat and took an awkward step or two toward 
the rude platform. 

“ ‘ ’Pears like it’s a great waste for us to come 
so far and go away without gettin’ anything, 
when there’s enough of us here for a meetin’, 
too,’ he said. ‘ I s’pose a prayer might go jest 
as high if a parson didn’t pray it, or a good word 
go jest as deep as if the reg’lar one was here to 
say it. Dear knows, there’s need enough of 


OUR MISSIONARIES. 


291 


’most anything good ; it ain’t over-plenty in 
these parts.’ 

“ There was a little ripple of laughter in the 
audience, and an assenting murmur of ‘ That’s 
so !’ — ‘ You’re right there !’ from two or three of 
the men — more, however, as if they wished to 
show themselves in sympathy with their comrade 
than as if they were at all painfully impressed by 
the lack he mentioned. 

“ ‘ Mebby,’ pursued the speaker, suddenly 
turning his weatherbeaten face in our direction 
— ‘ mebby, seein’ there’s some folks here late 
from town, they’d have a word to say ?’ 

“ There could be no mistaking the persons he 
addressed, and the gaze of all the other eyes 
followed his. I cannot tell you how it thrilled 
me — that unexpected appeal, the little room with 
its dim, flaring lights, those strange faces turned 
curiously or hungrily toward us. 

“ ‘ You must speak to them — tell them some- 
thing,’ I urged the boys, in a whisper; but 
Charlie replied in a low tone: 

“ ‘ Sing.’ 

“ It was a wise suggestion, for, beginning with 
old familiar hymns, we soon found some of the 
other voices joining ours, their owners heartily 
enjoying it too, as was shown by both tones 
and manner. 

“After three or four hymns a momentary si- 
lence fell, and then Charlie repeated the one 

f| 


292 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

hundred and third psalm. That brought our 
frontiersman to his feet again : 

“ ‘ That’s what I call good ! I learned that 
myself from my old mother when I was a little 
shaver at home. I’ve forgot it since ; there’s 
lots of us forgets what we learned in our old 
homes, more’s the pity for us !’ 

“ ‘ Oh yes, Bill, but lots of things that was 
easy enough back there, where life and times was 
easy, won’t stand the wear and tear out here,’ 
argumentatively responded another — a rough- 
looking young fellow. ‘ Fact is, all that sort 
of thing is well enough where folks is good 
naturally and hain’t any call to be anything else, 
but it won’t fit a place like this and rough sticks 
like us.’ 

“ It was Dane who answered them, slowly but 
earnestly, not giving any page from his own ex- 
perience; yet I think no one who heard him could 
doubt that the one who spoke had tasted the bit- 
terness of temptation, conflict and sin. It may 
be — who knows ? — that Dane has a work here of 
which we did not dream. 

“We had waited so long before we were sure 
that the appointed speaker of the evening would 
not arrive that there wjis little time left for those 
who had a long ride before them. But that even- 
ing suggested to us the possibility of a regular 
weekly service there, and we mean to consult 
the old frontiersman and a few others, and try to 


OUR MISSIONARIES. 


293 


get our hastily-formed plan into working-order. 
We should need some hymn-books and a few 
other supplies of the sort from you, but I will 
write of that later. By the way, I am slowly 
making out a list of articles which we cannot 
find here, and so shall have to ask you to pur- 
chase for us for our Christmas exercises at the 
Wampum school.” 

That list, when it arrived, three or four months 
later, proved so long a one as to require consid- 
erable shopping, while the selection of books and 
papers called for judgment and care on the part 
of the purchasers ; but the whole family had be- 
come deeply interested in that little Western 
school. 

One evening the girls were discussing the 
ways and times of filling the order, when the 
consultation was broken by a peal of the door- 
bell. Hetty looked at her sister mischievously : 

“Mr. Reynolds, I suppose. You may go 
yourself. Rose ; I have answered his request 
for ‘Your sister. Miss Hetty?’ until it is grow- 
ing monotonous.” 

Rose laughed with the color deepening in her 
cheeks. 

“ It must be some one else this time, I think,” 
she said as she answered the summons. She 
proved the truth of her assertion by ushering 
into the room, a moment later, a stranger — a 
stranger to herself and Hetty, but one whom 


294 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Eunice, after a quick, bewildered glance, greeted 
joyfully : 

“ Charlie ! My dear Charlie !” 

Bronzed though he was by Western winds, and 
with the dust of travel not yet removed, he was 
still a sufficiently fine, manly-looking young 
fellow to justify the pride with which Eunice 
introduced her brother. Except in personal 
appearance, they knew him well already from 
Louise’s many letters home ; and the little Wam- 
pum school, with a host of Western interests, 
grew nearer and more familiar still even in that 
first evening’s talk. If they had not already 
learned to consider him one of themselves, the 
way in which he spoke of the absent ones would 
have won him his place. 

“ You do not know what a sister Louise has 
been to us boys,” he interrupted himself in the 
middle of a narrative to say. “ Dane does not 
seem to have a much greater claim uiDon her 
than Max and I, and aunt and Uncle Seth too, 
for that matter. We could not do without her. 
However, she says it is only a fair exchange for 
Eunice’s sisterly offices here. One wouldn’t 
have imagined she could take so naturally to 
roughing it, though, in fact, she has a way of 
smoothing a great deal of the roughness out of 
nearly every thing she touches.” 

Eunice, listening to the eager flow of questions 
and answers, and, noticing how speedily and 


OVB MISSIONARIES. 


295 


I heartily Charlie was at home in this animated 
' circle, recalled with a flitting smile her own flrst 
; evening in this house. She remembered, too, 

; the gray winter day when she had bidden this 
young brother good-bye and the vow she had 
: taken that morning : “ Thy people shall be my 
people.” Only God had heard then ; only he 
could know what the history of its fulfillment 
I had been or understand all the deep content and 
! thankfulness that now filled her heart as she 
, looked back wonderingly over the path she had 
; trodden. 

Though he brought numerous additional com- 
missions, Charlie’s coming simplified the task of 
filling Louise’s list, since many points which had 
perplexed the others could be safely trusted to 
his knowledge of the place and the people for 
whom the various articles were intended. 

Eunice gladly took charge of the sewing and 
packing for “ our missionaries ” — as the circle at 
home had playfully, though with an undercurrent 
of deeper feeling, christened that branch of the 
family on the frontier — but it was Hetty who 
proved the most sagacious and successful assist- 
ant in the shopping-line. Arranging for the 
hours when she could be spared from the store, 
she and Charlie visited book-stores and bazars, 
examining and selecting with a care that made 
the limited amount of money to be expended 
achieve the best possible results. A class of 


296 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

very wide-awake and untamed little urchins in 
the mission-school at home had given Hetty 
much valuable experience, and the Western 
school reaped the benefit of it in this box which 
was packed for its use. 

Rose could contribute to the box only sym- 
pathy and suggestions, she said, though she 
continued to make them practical in many deft 
and dainty ways peculiarly her own. She had 
not much leisure to bestow, for the approaching 
holidays made a busy season at Merton & Rey- 
nolds’s, and her time was less at her own disposal 
than was Hetty’s. With the improvement in 
his business, and the consequent lifting of some 
heavy burdens that had made retrenchment so 
necessary, Tom urged Rose to resign her posi- 
tion ; but this she had positively refused to do, 
declaring that she was “ far happier as a woman 
of business ” than she had ever been before. 

“If I had a dozen girls to bring up, every 
one of them should learn some trade or profes- 
sion — should be provided with some means of 
self-support,” said Rose, emphatically. 

“ Is it possible that you are growing strong- 
minded ?” asked Tom, quizzically. 

“ It is possible that I am not so weak-minded 
as I once was in that particular direction,” 
laughed Rose. “In a country like this, where 
fortunes change so easily and so often, it is cruel 
to leave girls useless, helpless and dependent. 


OUR MISSIONARIES. 


297 


It is not just to them — nor to their big brothers/' 
with an affectionate glance at Tom. 

“Ah, well !” said Tom, trying bravely to pre- 
tend that it was only mirth which twinkled in 
his eyes as he looked across the table at his wife; 
“ what fearful germs of infection must have been 
brought into this house from that little wool- 
store !” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


ONE AFTERNOON. 

N otwithstanding Eose’s regret that 

she could contribute so little to the box, 
she was indirectly the means of contributing 
the work of many willing fingers. The Circle, 
gathering for its regular meeting one evening, 
found Mrs. Wilber and Hetty busy at a small 
table, cutting out aprons and finishing olf coarse 
mittens, while in a large basket beside them were 
a variety of articles. 

“We must keep our work in the back-parlor to- 
night. May we leave the doors open, so that we 
can listen to the reading?” asked Eunice, play- 
fully ; and then she explained the cause of their 
haste and for what they were working. “ Of 
course our friends did not ask all this of us,” 
she added, “ but we could make the money for 
their little school go so much farther by making 
some of the things ourselves, and in some cases 
we could not buy what they wanted.” 

“ Can’t we help you, Mrs. Wilber ?” asked 
Fanny. “ I’m sure I’d like to do it.” 

“So would I. While one is reading, why 

298 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


299 


can’t the others sew ?” suggested a second ; and 
a group of eager girls gathered around the table. 

The work was speedily apportioned, and the 
many workers carried it on rapidly, voting, when 
they found that there were a number of cheap 
dolls to be dressed, to arrange their next even- 
ing’s programme so that they could work in the 
same way. 

Charlie had been commissioned to return not 
only with a box full of materials, but also with a 
head full of ideas, and for the gathering of these 
last he and Hetty visited many of the charitable 
and other institutions of the city. 

“Louise often wishes she had learned more 
of such things when she was here at home, and 
she charged me to study them while I remain 
here. If I could only study them with her 
eyes, I should see a great deal more than I can 
now. We out there think Louise is a wonderful 
W'oman.” They had been at Hetty’s mission- 
school, and were discussing its management as 
they came out into the gray winter afternoon. 
It was already growing shadowy in the chapel ; 
the sun had nearly finished his short day’s course, 
and hung low in the west, a great red ball. 

Hetty drew her wraps more closely about her 
for the long walk : 

“We are quite in the suburbs, you see, though 
there is such a cluster of poor little houses around 
us. Shall we go down to the river-bank ? It is a 


300 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

pleasanter way home than through these narrow 
streets,” she said. 

The winter had set in early. There had been 
some intense cold in November, relaxing after- 
ward into a fall of snow, and the banks made a 
white bed-frame for the silent, ice-bound river. 
Few people were abroad on the quiet street, but 
a little knot of men and half-grown boys were 
at a corner looking out toward the river, and 
an exclamation from one of them drew Hetty’s 
attention : 

“ He is ! Just look at the idiot !” 

“ That’s what he’s trying to do. He’ll drown 
the whole lot of ’em,” added another ; and, 
springing from the group, he ran down to the 
river’s edge, shouting, “ Hello ! Keep back 
there !” 

Over on the opposite shore was a light sleigh 
containing three persons, and the driver seemed 
trying to urge his horse down on to the ice. 

“ Who is it ? What is the trouble ?” asked 
Charlie, his curiosity aroused by the evident 
excitement of those around him. 

The man whom he addressed was rough in 
face and dress, and turned quickly at the ques- 
tion ; but he answered civilly enough as his 
eyes fell upon Hetty : 

“ Don’t know who it is. Some fellow over there 
that’s bound to drive across on the ice, and he’ll 
get into the river if he ain’t careful. The boys 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


301 


have been skating some, but not clear across, and 
the ice ain’t strong enough to bear any such rig 
yet. He ought to have more sense.” But he 
had no more, even though the warning was re- 
peatedly shouted to him. He either did not 
hear or would not heed, but forced his reluctant 
horse forward. 

It seemed impossible to leave the scene until 
assured of its outcome. The group at the cor- 
ner hurried down to the shore, and Hetty and 
Charlie followed them at a little distance. The 
sleigh was fairly out upon the ice by that time, 
and as its occupants could be more clearly dis- 
cerned it appeared that two of them were women. 
For a few rods all went well, but as they drew 
nearer to the centre of the stream the ice began 
to crack, and the screams of the women testified 
to their alarm. The man who had so obstinately 
insisted upon crossing appeared to lose not only 
his dogged determination, bnt all self-possession. 
When the danger grew imminent and the only 
hope of escape lay in pressing forward at the 
utmost speed, he half drew rein irresolutely, and 
seemed inclined to turn back. 

“ Come on ! Come on !” shouted the men on 
the shore. “Whip up, for your life!” 

One of the women had a clearer brain and 
stronger nerves than the driver ; she seized the 
whip and lashed the frightened horse forward. 
Fortunately, the river was not wide, but the short 


302 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

ride was a fearful one, with the ice cracking on 
every side, parting in fissures behind them, and 
the water oozing over the runners as they reached 
the shore. Then the terrified horse, finding firm 
ground under his feet once more, dashed up the 
narrow road, almost overturning the sleigh, and, 
whirling into the street, was speeding away at 
his own will, when some men who had been 
watching succeeded in stopping him. 

One of the occupants of the sleigh — a young 
girl — sprang from it as it turned into the road, 
and alighted unharmed in the snow. Hetty, 
coming up, recognized her : 

“ Del Ray !” 

“ Oh !” said Del, with a long, shivering breath ; 
and, leaning back against a wall for a minute, 
she coyered her face with her hands. 

“ Are you hurt ?” asked Hetty, anxiously ; and 
one of the boys, who had followed the older peo- 
ple, made a bashful tender of hospitality : 

“ Better come into this house, ma’am, and get 
rested a bit, hadn’t ye ?” 

“ No, thank you, oh no ; I’m not hurt.” Del 
tried to laugh, but her pale lips trembled. “ I’m 
only shaken and — and frightened. I’ll be all 
right in a minute.” 

The men had stroked and soothed the horse 
into quiet, and were leading him slowly back. 
Del’s companions were coming, too; she saw 
them, and turned hurriedly to Hetty : 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


303 


“ Oil, I can’t go with them ! I want to go 
home with you. May I?” 

“ Surely ; but can you walk so far ?” 

“ Yes ; I can do anything but go with them. 
I don’t want to ride.” 

The others, as Hetty had surmised, were Ma- 
ria and her cousin. The latter took possession 
of the horse again, bestowing but scant thanks 
upon those who had assisted him, since they had 
mingled with their aid some very concise criti- 
cisms of his course and some highly unflatter- 
ing opinions of his general intelligence, one of 
them even advising him to “steer straight for 
the nighest lunatic asylum and try not to get 
loose again.” 

The young man ventured no audible reply, 
but muttered something under his breath as he 
rearranged the lap-robes. Then he called to 
Del, not in the most courteous of tones : 

“ Come ! get in again. We are all ready 
now.” 

Del refused to go, and to a second call re- 
turned only a negative shake of the head. 

Maria came over to argue the matter. 

“ Don’t be so silly, Del !” she said, impa- 
tiently. “ Come and get in again ; there is no 
use in being a coward after the danger is all 
over. The horse is all right now.” 

“ The driver isn’t,” said Del, in a low tone. 

“ Pshaw !” Maria cast a quick look at Hetty 


304 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

and the others, to see if the remark had been 
overheard. Then she replied in a still lower 
tone : “ I am, if he isn’t ; you might have sense 
enough to trust me. Come, Del ; we are only 
making a scene. There are more people com- 
ing out now.” 

But Del positively declined to go. 

“ It’s of no use to urge, Maria : I will not get 
in that sleigh again,” she said, firmly. “ You 
may go, if you like ; I shall not.” 

“ What will you do, then ? You must get 
home in some way,” said Maria, annoyed and 
angry. 

Hetty interposed : 

“She is going home with me. We will take 
care of her.” 

The look Maria cast upon Hetty was certainly 
not one of gratitude. 

But remonstrance and persuasion were alike 
unavailing : Del would not yield ; and after one 
or two more ineffectual attempts and another 
impatient call from the sleigh, Maria reluctantly 
turned away and left her. She had some dif- 
ficulty, apparently, in reconciling her compan- 
ion to the arrangement. He seemed inclined to 
return and try to carry the case himself, but she 
prevented him, and finally they drove away. 

Hetty and the others had already turned home- 
ward. Del tried to talk naturally upon ordinary 
topics, but it was an effort to talk at all, and her 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


305 


companions, seeing it, soon ceased to address any 
remarks to her. They chatted with each other 
in the hope of interesting her and diverting her 
thoughts from what had happened, but Hetty 
wondered many times during that walk w^hy the 
girl had chosen to go with them. They seldom 
saw her at the house now — she had not been 
there for months — and Hetty would have deemed 
the occurrence of this Sunday afternoon likely to 
make her shun them still further. It was not 
easy to explain the visit to herself, and still less 
so to explain it to those at home, who would 
share her surprise, she knew, though they wel- 
comed Del as though her presence were not 
unusual. Hetty recounted the manner of their 
meeting, touching as lightly as possible upon 
the peril and escape, and Del supplemented the 
story very briefly by saying that she “ could not 
bear the thought of riding any more.” Why 
she had wished to come so far when a shorter 
walk would have taken her to her boarding- 
place she did not state. 

Out of Del’s presence, Hetty gave a clearer 
account of the afternoon adventure, but Del did 
not refer to it again until the family had gone 
to evening service and she found herself alone 
with Rose. Then she dropped the pretence 
of composure which it had been so difiicult to 
maintain, and told the whole story of the ride 
and its termination. 


306 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

“But why did he insist on running such a 
fearful risk?” asked Bose. 

“ Because he had been drinking until he 
scarcely knew what he was about. Oh, it’s been 
a dreadful afternoon ! I thought he would up- 
set the sleigh half a dozen times before he came 
to the river — running along the edge of deep 
ditches and choosing all sorts of bad roads. And 
then that dreadful ride over the ice ! We didn’t 
really think he would do that — at least, Maria 
didn’t, and she made me sit still when I wanted 
to get out. She said he would only drive a lit- 
tle way along the edge and then turn back, and 
she was afraid of making him angry. We 
should have been drowned if she hadn’t taken 
the whip. Think of trusting yourself to the 
care of such a man ! And I had almost trusted 
my whole life to him, too, but I never will do it 
now — never ! That is why I wanted to come 
here to-night — to get away from them. I knew 
they would come to my boarding-place.” 

“ Yes. Tell me all about it if you like, Del, 
hut try to be calm ; the danger is over now,” said 
Bose, soothingly ; for the girl was trembling with 
excitement. 

“ Oh, I must tell somebody — I must ! It has 
been such a tangle ! I did not mean it should 
go so far, but I had become acquainted with 
Maria when I boarded at her mother’s, and with 
this cousin through her. He dressed well and 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


307 


always seemed to have plenty of money ; and it 
is nice to be made much of and taken to places, 
and all that sort of thing : it was for me, who 
had no friends here. I liked to boast of it to the 
other girls, too, just for fun ; but I did not think 
of its going any farther than acquaintanceship 
until he began to talk as if I had as good as 
promised to marry him, and Maria and her 
mother said the same thing, I felt dreadfully 
about it ; I didn’t care for him in that way, you 
see — I couldn’t — nor trust him, only they talked 
to me till there seemed nothing else to do. They 
had flattered me that it was smart and independ- 
ent to break away from some old ways — about 
Sunday and such things — but I couldn’t accept 
all their new ones ; and when I found he drank, 
I couldn’t feel about it as Maria did. She only 
laughed when I told her. She said it was noth- 
ing — nobody thought anything of that; and, 
any way, he would reform if he had a home 
of his own. It has been a wretched year. I 
wouldn’t come to the Circle because I was afraid 
it would interfere with my plans and fetter me 
in some way, and see what a chain my own folly 
has bound me with ! Do you think I am really 
bound by any promise to him. Miss Wilber? 
Oh, I cannot be !” 

“ No,” said Rose, positively ; “ a wrong can 
never be righted by persisting in it. Even if 
you had really given such a promise, you would 


308 WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 

have no right, knowing what you know now, to 
keep it.” 

The assured tone seemed to comfort Del ; she 
leaned her head back wearily against the sofa- 
pillow : 

“ It is such a relief to hear you say so — to 
have somebody tell me I am free ! I remem- 
ber reading once of a party who had rowed out 
on the river, and just for fun and the daring of 
the tiling tried to see how near they could go to 
the falls. By and by they found that they had 
gone too far and had no power to resist the cur- 
rent. That is the way I have felt for months. 
I wish I could go home for a few weeks and rest, 
but I cannot afford to lose my place in the store. 
Oh, if I could only lay my head in mother’s lap 
and tell her all about it !” 

The words ended with a sob. The weeks of 
anxiety and indecision, combined with the day’s 
excitement, had taxed heart and nerves too heav- 
ily. Del was feverish, her hands trembled, her 
brain was in a whirl and utterly incapable of 
calm thought or rational planning. Bose per- 
suaded her to go to bed as soon as possible, and 
sat beside her for a little while until the aching 
head became more quiet on its pillow, and she 
hoped sleep might follow. 

“ She ought to go home for a week or two,” 
said Eunice, thoughtfully, when Bose, an hour 
later, took counsel with her sisters; “she will 


ONE AFTERNOON. 


309 


scarcely be able to go to the store to-morrow, 
and she needs a little time to recover her bal- 
ance of mind and body. Her mother better 
than any one else could help her untangle 
this web she has woven, and it would give her 
a chance to start afresh. Could she obtain a 
vacation now without the necessity for too many 
troublesome explanations ? It is a busy time, I 
know.” 

Hetty looked at her sister : 

“ Could you manage it. Rose ?” 

The color deepened in Rose’s cheeks : there 
was one at Merton & Reynolds’s who would be 
tolerably certain to manage the granting of any 
favor she asked, and for that reason she was 
scrupulously careful not to ask any. But this 
was not for herself. 

“ I think I can ; we will send her home in the 
morning,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. 

Del gladly trusted it all to Rose, and went 
away in the early train, receiving, two days 
later, a brief, business-like, but kindly, letter 
from Merton & Reynolds expressing regret at 
her indisposition and granting her three weeks’ 
leave of absence. 

The box which had excited so much interest 
on both sides of the Rocky Mountains was com- 
pleted at last, and its contents were carefully 
packed. 


310 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


Hephzibah had made the last addition in a 
bundle of stockings of her own knitting. 

“ For I reckon, while this world lasts, there’ll 
always be use for stockings,” she said; “and 
while there is, the Lord will always have some 
use for the women who can only sit in quiet 
corners and knit. I’m glad of that.” 

Charlie’s visit, protracted beyond what he had 
first intended, came to an end. It had been long 
enough for him to learn to feel at home in his 
sister’s household, and for its inmates to count 
him as one of themselves; and he received an 
urgent invitation to return at midsummer and 
bring other members of the family with him. 

“ To witness an interesting experiment in hor- 
ticulture — the transplanting of a Rose,” explained 
Hetty, demurely. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE PROPHET'S CHAMBER. 

A ll through May and June there had been 
a constant flitting to and fro between the 
Wilber home and a commodious house on a 
broader street. The new house — new only to 
its present ownership — had been undergoing a 
thorough course of repairing, rearranging and 
painting, and many were the consultations over 
the relative beauties of various woods, papers, 
tints and designs. Then there had been the 
furnishing — “ each room a picture by three 
artists,” Luke Reynolds said when he found the 
trio of ladies seated on a carpet gravely discuss- 
ing window-draperies. Picture-like surely was 
the eflect when the work had been completed 
and the pleasant rooms appeared in their new 
and beautiful order. 

“ But these !” said Rose, surveying two apart- 
ments opening from an upper hall, a large one 
and smaller one, connecting with each other. 
“We do not seem to have any particular use 
for these. I shall let them go for the present.” 
Mr. Reynolds the younger had with the open- 

311 


312 


WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 


ing year become a partner in the firm of Mer- 
ton & Reynolds, and was so impressed with the 
advantages of partnership that he had induced 
Rose also to consider them. So one fair morn- 
ing in midsummer, when the world lay in the 
strange hush and flush of its perfect beauty, 
there was an unwonted gathering in the old 
home-parlors. An odd assemblage many of 
Rose’s old-time acquaintances must have thought 
it, if they ever obtained full details, for, though 
not large, it ranged all up and down the social 
gamut. The Mertons and the Reynoldses and 
Mrs. Shelby were there, with all the station and 
wealth they represented, and there also — Rose 
would have it so — were Madame More and the 
girls from the store. Nobody objected, and no- 
body was hurt. Mrs. Shelby’s manner lost none 
of its high-bred, gentle courtesy because beside 
her sat fussy, impxilsive madame, who wiped 
from her eyes a few tears called forth by a gen- 
eral sentiment of the fitness of things and a par- 
ticular appreciation of her own loss in the cos- 
tume department, while she breathed a sigh of 
satisfaction that the wedding-dress fitted per- 
fectly and regretted once more that “ Mees Rose 
would have it so simple.” Hephzibah, standing 
stiffly erect in the doorway — ^she would come no 
farther — bestowed a compassionate look upon ma- 
dame and her fluttering handkerchief. Next 
to Mrs. Wilber, Rose was her especial delight. 


THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER. 


313 


but for herself she bravely eschewed all tears. 
She remembered another marriage over which 
at the time she had sorely grieved, and she had 
learned since then, she said, not to think she 
“could manage things better than Providence.” 

After all the urgent invitations on one side 
and the partial promises and much planning on 
the other, the Western members of the family 
had been unable to come : their work was press- 
ing, the journey was long, and loving messages 
had at last to be accepted instead of their pres- 
ence. Therefore, when the quiet ceremony was 
over and the carriages had been driven away, the 
house was left to more than its wonted stillness, 
and for those who remained there was only that 
“picking up and putting to rights” which all 
women know so well, since it inevitably follows 
in the train of every event, whether joyful or 
sorrowful, that sweeps through the house. After 
the bridal, after the funeral, after the glad sur- 
prise or the terrible accident, some one speed- 
ily gathers up the scattered articles, replaces the 
disturbed furniture and restores — outwardly — the 
normal order. One smiles at the perfect fidel- 
ity to common life of the sacred story : “ The 
fever left her, and she arose and ministered unto 
them.” Of course she did ! After the first burst 
of thanksgiving for her miraculous restoration, 
we can fancy her beginning to straighten the 
disordered couch, to push the furniture back to 


314 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

where it had been before her illness, and straight- 
way to remember that somebody must get supper. 

That new house on the other street was all 
aglow with light one evening two weeks later to 
welcome the returning travelers. Eunice had 
spent half the day there, Hephzibah had divided 
her time between the two houses, and Hetty came 
at the earliest moment she could escape from the 
store. Even Tom dropped in unexpectedly early 
to see if his services were needed and to inspect 
what had been done. They congratulated each 
other upon the fact that the evening was suf- 
ficiently cool to afford a pretext for the fire in 
the open grate which brightened up the library 
with such a cheery glow, and that the wedding- 
gifts of silver and china decked so prettily the 
first tea-table at home which was to greet Rose’s 
arrival. The dining-room, in its fresh glory 
of crimson and gold, had been the chief attrac- 
tion to Hephzibah, and the white-dfaped table 
bore tempting proofs of her skill. Flowers were 
everywhere — white lilies, golden-hearted pansies 
and roses of every hue. It was a vision of 
home-comfort and beauty to gladden any eyes, 
the party decided as they passed, an admiring 
procession, from one room to another. 

So, too, thought Rose as her foot crossed the 
threshold. She paused for an instant, and 
shaded her eyes with her hand. 


THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER. 


315 


“Welcome home!” said a low voice at her 
side. “Do the lights dazzle you?” 

But in that brief moment Rose had besought 
One unseen to enter with them and abide there. 

Perhaps it was because of this that a sudden 
thought came to her afterward. She had worn 
her new dignity of mistress of the establishment 
but a week or two when she looked in upon 
Hetty with a very bright face one day : 

“I know now what I want to do with those 
unused rooms. It came to me this morning 
while I was reading, and the verse has been 
saying itself over to me ever since : ‘ The Mas- 
ter saith unto thee, Where is the guest-cham- 
ber?’ ” 

“Well?” Hetty answered, questioningly, re- 
membering the dainty bower whose appoint- 
ments she had helped to choose. “You have 
one.” 

“Yes, mine; but it is his — the Master’s — I 
am thinking of.” 

“I thought all the rooms were his,” began 
Hetty, slowly. 

“ They are — they shall he ; and that is why I 
want this special one among them. I do not 
think it could be possible in a house that was 
not his. You know where that verse belongs, 
Hetty — how he claimed that guest-chamber for 
his especial use. Why shouldn’t I have such a 
one — not just for ordinary visitors, but for oth- 


316 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

ers — ^like the chamber the Shunammite woman 
built upon the wall? Can you come with me 
this afternoon and help me choose ‘ a bed and 
a table and a stool and a candlestick’?” 

Hetty assented : 

“ But I do not fully understand it yet, Rose 
— how the room is to be used, or by whom.” 

“ Nor do I — quite ; only you know how it is 
with that portion of our money that we put 
aside as the Lord’s — how many calls there are 
upon it, and how many things we give and help 
and do that we should consider beyond our 
power if that certain sum had not been laid 
aside. I think it will be so with a room. That 
Shunammite, dwelling among her own people, 
must often have had many guests, and the man 
of God might not have been able to stop there 
so constantly hut for the special chamber on the 
wall.” 

“ I do not believe you have a Bible like any- 
body else’s,” said Hetty, wonderingly. 

“And I do not believe any two people have 
Bibles alike, saying precisely the same things 
to both,” answered Rose, thoughtfully. “How 
could it be so, when it’s God’s word to each 
soul, and our souls are unlike, our lives differ- 
ent and the paths we must tread are so diverse ?” 

The plan grew clearer as Rose worked upon it. 

“ This room,” she said of the larger one, “ is 
for the girls — not a place for set times, nor to be 


THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER. 


317 


reached only through the formality of a visit to 
me, but a parlor for themselves, and for those 
like them whom they may choose to bring; a 
place where they are free to come and go at will ; 
a pleasant nook in which to write letters, where 
; they can bring their books or their work for an 
: evening, or drop in to rest or chat. So many 
of the boarding-houses are crowded and dreary ! 
I want this room to be a little piece of home to 
them.” 

Homelike it looked with its soft bright car- 
pet, its inviting lounge and easy-chairs, a writ- 
ing-desk in a convenient corner, a work-table 
drawn cozily before an open window. There 
were a few pictures on the walls, a few books 
and magazines on the hanging-shelves, and room 
for more that the girls might choose to add. 

Hetty peeped into the smaller room, adjoin- 
ing, also complete in its furnishing now, even 
1 to the illuminated text, the heart of it all, that 
I hung upon the wall : “ Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it unto me.” 

“And this?” questioned Hetty. 

“ Is for whoever shall be sent. Some of the 
girls — sick, tired or obliged to change quarters 
— may need it for a few nights now and then. 
And there will be others. It has its own en- 
trance from the hall, you know, and so can easily 
be separated from the other room when neces- 


318 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

sary. I do not know who will be the one to 
occupy it first or last. It is just the prophet’s 
chamber.” 

The history of those rooms we have no time 
to write. Such histories, indeed, never can be 
fully written in all time, since a part of every 
chapter runs beyond, and is lost to human knowl- 
edge. That the girls at the store enjoyed the 
room fitted up for them need scarcely be said, 
but it was far more than a mere pleasantness to 
them. It became, as Rose had hoped, “ a little 
bit of home,” and from it went out influences 
that moulded many lives. In summer it was 
always cool and restful, in winter its bright fire 
was always burning, and gradually the fancy- 
work that filled leisure-moments, the books they 
were reading, the letters to be answered, were 
left there instead of being carried away ; and it 
became “ our room,” in which they gathered 
evening after evening. Out of this grew other 
improvements. 

“ Oh dear !” said one, half laughingly, half 
dolefully, on a rainy night ; “ I wish our sleep- 
ing-rooms were not quite so far from our parlor, 
with such an exceedingly damp passageway be- 
tween.” 

“ I’ve been thinking that we might have them 
a little nearer and a little more comfortable,” 
answered Del Ray, thoughtfully. “We can’t 
afford it singly, but by two rooming together and 


THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER. 


319 


a number of us taking rooms at one house, per- 
haps — I haven’t thought it all out.” 

Others were quick to take up the suggestion, 
and it was the beginning of numerous little co- 
operative schemes that brought increased comfort 
and safety also. 

In all these things Rose was prime counselor 
and efficient aid, and her influence — which she 
was wisely content should remain only influence, 
without seeming or seeking to be anything more 
— wrought richer results than these in many 
ways, touching heart and soul, character and 
destiny. 

There were some, of course, who wondered at 
the “ taste of young Mrs. Reynolds in tolerating 
such companionship. She was a shop-girl her- 
self a little while, to be sure — either from caprice 
or from necessity — but, having escaped from it 
and marrying as she did, what could possess a 
lady to keep up such associations?” 

When these comments reached Rose — as 
through the doubtful kindness of friends such 
comments usually do reach the object of them 
— she smiled undisturbed. 

“ When my ladyhood becomes so exceedingly 
fragile a possession that such contact is likely to 
crush it, I shall not consider it worth preserv- 
ing,” she said. 

The smaller room — “ the prophet’s cham- 
ber ” — ^held at different times many and varied 


320 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

guests. A sweet-faced, sad-eyed mother who 
had brought her little blind child to the city for 
treatment by an eminent oculist, and who could 
not afford to pay for comfortable lodgings, ob- 
tained shelter and sympathy here; a worn-out 
seamstress ordered to rest a week or two discov- 
ered the prescription to be practicable in that 
pretty, quiet nook ; an aged saint who had almost 
reached the heavenly home. So they came and 
went as the months passed. 

But in the late autumn of that first year it 
had one guest who is more closely linked with 
our story. As Bose stepped into the hall one 
morning a sheet of paper fluttered down to the 
carpet before her, almost at her feet. She 
wondered from whence it had come — a letter, it 
seemed, written in the plain, stiff hand of one 
not accustomed to using a pen. As she picked 
it up her eye fell upon a single paragraph : 

“ I wish I could come and see you, dear child ! 
Seems to me as if I should feel so much more at 
rest about you if I could just see how you are 
fixed, and all about it. But I know you have no 
place for me to stay, and we can’t afford it.” 

Bose hastily turned the sheet, as one in per- 
plexity always does, to glance at the signature. 
“ Margaret Boy that told her nothing. Name 
and chirography were alike unfamiliar, and she 
could learn its origin and purport only by read- 
ing it through. She turned to the beginning 


THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER. 


321 


and read “ Dear Del.” Then for the first time 
it occurred to her that the paper was nothing 
belonging to nor intended for herself. “Del”! 
The name was “ Ray,” then, instead of “ Roy,” 
as she had first read it, and it must be from Del 
Ray’s mother. But how had it come here? A 
moment’s study satisfied Rose that it had prob- 
ably slipped unnoticed from pocket or satchel on 
the upper landing, dropped down upon the stairs 
and lodged against the balustrade, from which 
insecure perch the closing of the door had jarred 
it to her feet. She folded it carefully ; and when 
she went up stairs, she left it in the girls’ room. 

But the sentence Rose had inadvertently read 
could not be so easily disposed of. Del, after her 
visit home the previous winter, had returned to 
the store again quieter, but evidently a happier 
girl than she went away. The tie between her 
and Maria’s family was permanently broken, and 
she seemed anxious to surround herself with asso- 
ciations as different as possible from the old ones. 
The thought of the old mother at home haunted 
Rose that morning. It would be such a joy to the 
faithful mother-heart to see the girl in her present 
surroundings, and the gift was in Rose’s power. 

“ Luke, I’ve been thinking this morning that 
I’d like to invite a guest from the country,” Rose 
said to her husband at dinner that day. 

“ Invite the whole outlying population, my 
21 


322 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

Rosary, if you want them and can find room for 
them — provided you leave room for ourselves,” 
was the laughing response. “ Have I not stud- 
ied the example of the Shunammite’s husband ? 
Maybe he was too busy to think of or help much 
about the entertaining — the story reads like it — 
but at least he had the grace not to hinder.” 

“ I suspect his being busy furnished the means 
to purchase the table, the stool and the can- 
dlestick,” smiled Rose. “ But I don’t want the 
whole outlying population ; it is only one old 
woman whom I never have seen ;” and she told 
him the incident of the morning. 

So it happened that, comfortably ensconced in 
the library that afternoon, the young mistress of 
the beautiful home wrote a letter that was read 
the next day in a plain old farmhouse kitchen. 
The hands, rough and toil-worn, that opened it 
trembled at sight of tlie strange handwriting. 
Was Del sick or in trouble? The eager eyes 
scanned it dimly, blunderingly ; then, reassured, 
the old lady adjusted a pair of steel- bowed 
spectacles and read it through. 

The gray head dropped upou the table: 

“ O Lord, I thank thee ! Seems ’sif I couldn’t 
hardly wish for anything but what it’s taken like 
it was a prayer and granted. And I didn’t hard- 
ly dare to pray for this, not seein’ really any 
way it could be done. As if I needed to see, 
when thou hast so many ways!” 


THE PROPHET’S CHAMBER. 


323 


The next thought, woman-like, was whether 
her black-cashmere dress, seven years old and 
turned twice, would do for such a visit to the 
city; but of course it must, since a new one 
was not to be thought of. Then Uncle Eben’s 
comfort must be arranged for, though he scouted 
the idea that anything was necessary : 

“ I’d get along ’most any way to have you go. 
That’s a wonderful nice letter, now, I declare !” 

Fortunately, the hurry of the summer and the 
heavy work of the early fall were over, and a 
neighbor could be relied upon for assistance. 
The simple plan was soon perfected ; and when 
Mrs. Ray next wrote, it was to Rose. Though 
the hand might be stiff, the heart was not, and it 
poured itself out through those old-fashioned let- 
ters and occasionally misspelled words in a way 
that made the epistle one good to receive. 

Of all this innocent plotting Del was purpose- 
ly kept in ignorance until one gray autumn day. 
The wind moaned drearily that afternoon, the 
store-work had seemed hard, and the streets 
looked lonesome as she passed through them, 
but opening the door into the girls’ parlor was 
like stepping suddenly into another world. The 
room was aglow with light, and in an easy-chair 
by the open fire sat a figure in the well-known 
black-cashmere dress, white apron and linen 
collar — a blessed vision of home. 

“ Mother ! Oh, mother !” 


324 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


Mother and daughter shared the “prophet’s 
chamber ” that night, and every night thereafter 
while the memorable two weeks’ visit lasted. 

A motherly interest Mrs. Ray took in all the 
girls as they gathered there evening after even- 
ing. She insisted upon doing their mending as 
well as Del’s, putting in countless stitches for 
their welfare because she was “ not used to sit- 
ting idle,” and they vied with each other in 
showing her attentions and in efforts to make 
her visit pleasant. When it came to an end, 
and the carriage waited for her at the door, 
she turned to Rose with trembling lips and 
tears in the kindly old eyes: 

“ My dear — you won’t mind my calling you 
that, when I am so much older ? — I don’t b’lieve 
you hardly know all you’ve done. If that verse 
is true that hangs in the room I’ve slept in — and 
I’m sure it is, for He said it — then I think an- 
other alabaster box of ointment very precious 
has been broken at the feet of the Lord.” 

“ And it was such a little thing to do !” said 
Rose to her husband afterward — “a gift that 
really cost us nothing.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


“GOLD, SILVER AND PRECIOUS STONES.” 

T he weeks slip into months and the months 
fly so swiftly when heart and hands are full 
that two more years had passed without the long- 
talked-of visit from Louise or Dane. Then Rose 
declared it to be “ quite time for Mohammed to 
go to the mountain.” 

It was a soft, bright day in spring. Eunice 
was spending the afternoon with Rose, and Eu- 
nice’s baby-boy had been making a tour of the 
room upon a pair of somewhat unsteady little 
feet, to which every doorsill presented a serious 
obstacle, until he was triumphantly lifted over 
the last one by Hetty, who came in in time for 
tea. She brought an item of information — the 
departure of an acquaintance to spend a year in 
France. They discussed the pleasures of jour- 
ney and sojourn while they waited for the gen- 
tlemen to come, and then Rose said, 

“ I have been thinking of a plan that we may 
carry out this summer.” 

“ Does it begin with a text ?” asked Hetty. 
“Your plans usually do.” 


326 


326 WOOD, HA Y AND STUBBLE. 

“This one does not unless you appropriate 
the words of Jacob to Joseph : ‘ Go, I pray 
thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren 
and well with the flocks; and bring me word 
again.’ ” 

“Rose Reynolds!” Hetty forgot her frolic 
with the baby in her eagerness. “ Do you really 
mean you are going to see Louise at last ?” 

“ Oh, I hope you are,” added Eunice, heart- 
ily. “ Will your husband go ? Are you going 
alone ?” 

“ The case stands in this way,” answered Rose : 
“ Luke expects to go East on business that will 
occupy him several weeks, and after that to go 
to California. It will be a somewhat hurried 
trip ; but if I am brave enough to take the West- 
ern journey alone and start when he goes East, 
I can spend several weeks with them and be 
ready to go on to California with Luke when 
he comes. I wish you could go with me, Hetty 
— you or Eunice.” 

Eunice looked down at the little bundle of 
mischief, who had profited by the momentary 
abstraction of his elders and seized upon a 
portfolio of engravings. 

“Such a small encumbrance would not add 
to the pleasure of the journey, I fear,” she said, 
rescuing the imperiled pictures. 

Hetty shook her head in grave declination 
of her own share of the invitation : 


“GOLD, SILVER AND PRECIOUS STONES.” 327 

“ I hope to go next year, but I do not want 
you to wait until then. I am determined you 
shall go away for a little while this summer and 
take Eunice out to Aunt Mary’s. Just think ! 
she has not been there since she was married.” 

“ But, Hetty — ” began Eunice. 

She was promptly checked : 

“ No, you needn’t propose any change of pro- 
gramme, Eunice; I have bestowed entirely too 
much thought upon this little scheme of mine 
to have it overturned now. After all the argu- 
ments I have lavished upon Tom, it would be a 
cruel waste of logic to give up the point at last.” 

But Rose did not go alone ; greatly to her de- 
light, Mrs. Shelby proposed accomjjanying her. 

“ I have friends in California whom I should 
like to see again, and I have been thinking that 
such a trip might be beneficial,” said Mrs. Shel- 
by. “ If you go, I will go with you.” 

That settled that matter, and one bright morn- 
ing in early summer found the two ladies speed- 
ing Westward. It was pleasant traveling so long 
as their route lay along the main line ; but when 
it diverged, tliey found that they had not only 
parted with luxurious accommodations and many 
attendant conveniences, but that the character of 
their traveling-companions had also changed. 
The talk was all of shares, “ leads,” ore and 
assaying ; and very vehement talk it was. 

“ It must be that new mine at Hark’s Slope,” 


328 WOOD, HAY AJVD STUBBLE. 

said Rose — “ or ‘ mines/ I suppose I should say, 
by this time, Louise has written what a flood 
of immigration it was bringing, and we are in 
the direct line of it; I had forgotten that.” 

It was a fact our friends were not allowed to 
forget again, for the reminders of it increased as 
their journey progressed, until at one stage they 
found themselves the only women in the car, 
with some of their fellow-passengers so bois- 
terous as to render their neighborhood exceed- 
ingly unpleasant. 

A party of men who had been drinking were 
amusing themselves with a game of cards, and 
their shouts of laughter and bursts of profanity 
rose above the roar and rattle of the cars. One 
of the number seemed particularly excited. He 
seized the flask which was freely passed, and 
stumbled unsteadily down the aisle. At this 
juncture a gentleman who had been trying to 
sleep quietly left his seat and took a vacant one 
in front of the two ladies. 

Rose, with mingled relief and surprise, rec- 
ognized an old acquaintance : 

“Mr. Van Kort!” 

“ Miss Rose — Mrs. Reynolds ! And Mrs. Shel- 
by also ? I had not recognized you, but I thought 
you were casting uneasy glances in the direction 
of those turbulent fellows. This is a surprise !” 

There was a rapid interchange of questions, 
explanations and inquiries after old friends, for 


“GOLD, SILVER AND PRECIOUS STONES.” 329 

Mr. Yan Kort had made his home for some 
years in Arizona. Then, as the noisy hilarity 
of the card-players once more rose above all 
other sounds, he said, 

“We shall be rid of them soon : fifty miles 
more, and we change cars. Many of the pas- 
sengers on this line are now of the rougher sort 
— miners, gamblers, speculators and adventu- 
rers, all eager to get at the spoil. Yet some of 
these men are considered respectable at home, 
but they seem to drop the habits and restraints 
of civilization as rapidly as possible..” 

“ But why do they deteriorate so rapidly ?” 
asked Mrs. Shelby. 

“ It is not so much a case of being swiftly 
corrupted as of being swiftly stripped of bor- 
rowed goodness and artificial restraints,” Mr. 
Van Kort replied. “ Very few of us realize, 
until we are swept beyond them, how much we 
are indebted to Christian surroundings, influ- 
ences, customs and opinions for the character on 
which we pride ourselves. In these mining re- 
gions assaying is a very important business, and 
souls and characters are tested quite as promptly 
and surely as the ore.” 

As the gentleman described, in answer to her 
inquiries, the people, the mode of life and the 
efforts toward a higher civilization in his own 
locality. Rose smiled at the unconscious “we” 
which revealed so plainly where he stood, and 


330 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

she remembered a remark he had once made — 
that if he became a Christian at all he should 
be a “ terribly earnest one.” After a time she 
ventured to remind him of it. 

“Yes, I remember. Isn’t it strange that 
one can acknowledge so much even to himself, 
and yet fancy that he can stop there ? But in 
a place like this there is no longer room for a 
pretence of neutrality ; one is soon forced to be 
squarely for or against — to allow himself to be 
dragged down or to accept the only Strength in 
which he can stand. ‘ Who is he that overcom- 
eth the world, but he that believeth that Jesus 
is the Sou of God?’ I could not answer that 
challenge; I could not discover anything else 
that gave that power. Whenever I found a 
character growing strong, noble, beautiful, un- 
selfish — in short, overcoming the world — it was 
in one who believed that Jesus is the Christ, be- 
lieved in his kingdom and his coming again.” 

“ I cannot tell you what our meeting was 
like,” wrote Rose in her one long letter from 
Wampum City ; “ you must imagine that if you 
can. I think such things are only little hints 
of the joy we shall know when the last parting 
is over and we find ourselves safe and together, 
looking into each other’s faces with the blessed 
knowledge that we have all eternity to be glad 
and thankful in. 


! "GOLD, SILVER AND PRECIOUS STONES." 331 

I “There was a rude station, which I didn’t 
i see, and a very comfortable carriage — quite a 
I credit to Wampum City, so I was afterward 
' assured ; hut I didn’t notice that, either — to 
take us to Uncle Seth’s. And oh how we did 
; talk away into the ‘ wee sma’ hours ’ of that 
I first night before anybody discovered that it was 
bedtime ! Since then we have visited the won- 
i ders of Wampum City, and its most common 
arrangements are often wonderful to us. The 
traders’ exchange, you know, is in successful 
operation now, and Max and Dane are busy 
there the most of the year — doing a good busi- 
ness, too, and one that is likely to grow. Uncle 
Seth says ; and he is authority in such matters. 
The establishment, with its odd wares and odder 
customers, is curious enough ; but to me the 
strangest of it all is Dane himself. To think 
that this sun-browned, energetic, earnest man of 
business is our once-fastidious, pleasure-loving 
Dane! There is a strength about him, a look 
in his eyes, that are good to see. The listless- 
ness and gloom of that last dreary year at home 
have passed away, and life has been gradually 
growing wholesome and happy again, as it ought. 
But it has not come by forgetting the past. The 
other day, when we were out riding together, 
Dane and I alone, he gave me a packet for Eu- 
nice — ^her loan, with compound interest, he said. 

“ ‘ But, Dane — ’ I began ; for I knew Eunice 


332 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

had never considered it a loan, and I foresaw 
numerous objections and difficulties in the way 
of executing my commission. I do not know 
how he had learned that it was in part her little 
patrimony which had satisfied Bruce & Wells; 
probably it was by questioning Louise. 

“ Dane understood my half protest, and did 
not allow me time to utter it. 

“ ‘ Give it to Tom, then,’ he said ; ‘ he will 
know how I feel about it — that. I cannot rest 
until it has been paid, so far as money can repay. 
Tell Eunice the feeling that I must in some way 
eaim that has been worth as much to me as was 
her generous gift, for it furnished my only in- 
centive to work when I first came here ; but for 
that I could scarcely have aroused to sufficient 
energy to do anything.’ 

“ ‘ Interest and energy are not wanting now ?’ 
I questioned, with a sudden cowardly fear that 
it had been only this purpose that upheld him. 

“ Dane smiled : 

“ ‘ Do I look like it? Does this country, with 
all its possibilities and needs, strike you as a place 
where one who had any true manhood about him 
could lack a motive in life ? I am ambitious for 
influence, and for wealth too. Rose, though not in 
the old way nor for the old reason. But first there 
must go back to Tom all that was expended for 
me — all of money, I mean : the rest can never 
be reckoned.’ 


“GOLD, SILVER AND PRECIOUS STONES.” 333 

“We had a long talk during that ride of his 
hopes, his plans and the outlook here. How 
mercifully God has straightened the tangled 
web and brought light out of darkness that 
seemed to us so impenetrable! 

“ The little church ia which, with its Sunday- 
school, we have been so interested, we cannot 
visit — at least, not in its accustomed place — for 
the building was blown down in a furious storm 
two or three days before we came. ‘ It has been 
cleared away to make room for a better one,’ 
Mrs. Shelby says; and she has contributed so 
largely to that end that her visit has done much to 
cheer and encourage the people. Louise has had 
the children by classes at Uncle Seth’s, and they 
seem fully to share her delight in the cabinet- 
organ we brought. I could but watch her while 
she was occupied with some of her not very 
bright pupils, and afterward in a poor little 
house where some one was sick and they had 
sent for her to come. She is so strong, so pa- 
tient, yet she is Louise still, and the gracious 
thoughtfulness, the ready tact and the quick 
smoothing away of difficulties that won our girl- 
friends long ago and made them think her almost 
perfect win the people here also, different though 
they are. It is a comfort to me that the Mas- 
ter’s vineyard is wide, with need for many and 
diverse workers, when I see what she is doing 
here and realize how poorly I could fill her place. 


334 


WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 


bids us shine, 

You in your little corner, 
And I in mine,^ 


the children are singing even now, their shrill 
voices floating out to the tree under which I am 
writing, 

“We have spent several days at the ranch, 
with only the wide stretches of the prairie 
around us and our own little circle for com- 
pany. No, not quite so secluded as that, for 
we had two or three Indian callers — as Louise 
hoped, for my benefit, that we might. Then we 
rode out one evening to what the Norwegian 
help called a ‘ nope-nair meeting.’ I puzzled 
not a little over the strange institution, until I 
learned that she meant an open-air meeting. 
Even then the scene in many of its features 
was a strange one to us. It seems that since 
that gathering in the school-house of which 
Louise once wrote us such meetings have occa- 
sionally been held — at irregular intervals, neces- 
sarily, but never wholly given up. Sometimes, 
in pleasant weather, the little log building is 
exchanged for the surrounding timber — an in- 
definite designation, and very indefinite timber 
also, in that particular locality. The sparse 
growth of trees afibrded two or three fallen 
ones, that were used as seats, and a few stand- 
ing ones, against which some of the men leaned. 
For the rest, the congregation sat upon the 


“GOLD, SILVER AND PRECIOUS STONES.” 335 

ground, on saddles taken from the horses or on 
boards and blankets from the wagons. There 
was a Bible-reading, a good deal of singing — 
hearty and not unmelodious, but without books — 
and a brief talk by a stranger. The conference 
that followed was an oddly-varied one. I sup- 
pose some of the remarks would have seemed 
absurd and others almost irreverent to many 
listeners, yet they were neither. There was sin- 
cere thanksgiving in a woman’s homely recital 
of the help that came to her when her family 
were ‘ all down with the ager and not a hand to 
do a turn,’ and there was value in a rough man’s 
testimony to the courage and comfort he found 
in a hard year when the crops from which he 
had hoped so much ‘wasn’t worth shucks.’ ‘Call 
upon me in the day of trouble and I will answer 
thee ’ is not a promise that refers to extraordi- 
nary sorrows which can be pathetically expressed. 
Yet many things are considered too small to pray 
over which are deemed quite large enough to fret 
over for days at a time. 

“ ‘ But what society is this for our Louise !’ 
are you thinking? These are not all. Wam- 
pum City has its circle — small, but growing 
yearly larger — of cultured congenial people, 
and they are drawn all the more closely to- 
gether because they are few in number, all alike 
strangers in a new country and separated from 
old associations and friends; and there is the 


336 WOOD, HAY AND STUBBLE. 

added tie of common active interest in the build- 
ing up here of all that is good. 

“ To-morrow Luke will come, and we shall 
proceed toward the Golden Gate. But for me 
the golden gate has been here, in seeing all our 
dear ones where they are and what they are. 
If, as some one writes, ‘ the most we can possi- 
bly get from life is discipline for ourselves and 
helpfulness for others,’ then these, to quote from 
the miners, have ‘ struck a rich lead.’ ” 

Hetty dropped the long letter in her lap 
and looked thoughtfully out of the old window 
where she had sat so often in pleasant or moody 
musing. The setting sun bestowed on the house 
across the street a crown of light. The old sign 
— beaten and blistered by storm and heat, but 
still holding its own — creaked gently in the 
evening breeze that swept up from the river. 
Hetty smiled, though the tears stood in her eyes. 

“ Wood, hay and stubble no longer, I trust,” 
she said, softly, “ but gold, silver and precious 
stones — ^work that shall abide and receive its 
reward.” 


THE END. 




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